The Body and The Blood
by dopedupdawl
Summary: Pre-canon: "It started with a stolen cigarette and ended with questioning one's faith." Quinn & Santana―both raised in conservative Catholic homes―meet at Church Camp and the chemistry is instant. Can prayer cure all or do the urges eventually win out?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This idea just kind of came to me and I felt the need to fic it out... I hope you all enjoy it :3**

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><p>It's the summer between middle school and high school and, really, Santana can think of no lamer way to spend it than at fucking church camp... but, unfortunately, she doesn't really get a say in the matter. If she wants to stay in her daddy's good graces and gear towards getting that car when she turns 16, she's gotta follow the rules. Rule number one? Be a good Catholic girl. The thought makes her cringe, but the potential reward makes it all almost seem worth it.<p>

To be fair, being a 'good Catholic girl' by her dad's standards hasn't really been that hard. She doesn't have to go to church on a regular basis―only on major holidays―doesn't have to go to Sunday School, consistently gets away with skipping classes and breaking curfew. The only real hitch is this camp, which her parents deemed especially necessary after catching her necking with her best female friend just a month ago.

And so she's here, standing in line with a bunch of people she's never met before, listening to them prattle on about a religion she doesn't even know if she believes in, waiting to get on one of the numerous buses set to cart them off to what will surely be a hell hole (or at least her own _personal_ hell hole) for the next 2 months. The thought alone is stifling. She'd much rather stay in Lima, hang around with Brittany, lounge in the pool every day and just get tan as fuck. But, no such luck. Apparently 'God' has something else in mind.

After an entirely too-long wait, they board the buses. Everyone is chattering away around her, though she could care less about being included in their asinine conversations. She pulls out her iPod, which she's not allowed to have―a fact she is promptly reminded of by the bible-thumping blonde boy sitting next to her who gets nothing but a scoff and roll of the eyes in return―and pops in her earbuds as she leans her head against the window, wondering how the fuck she's going to survive the entire summer.

It's almost a two hour ride before they finally reach the middle of nowhere―Santana never having realized there was anywhere more 'nowhere' than Lima―which is, of course, their destination. The air is thicker here, and Santana can feel it hit her as soon as she steps off of the bus, the increase in humidity being a bit more unforgiving on her slightly asthmatic lungs. She lowers her sunglasses from their temporary position as a headband to cover her eyes, the bright sun nearly blinding despite the slight coverage from the numerous trees surrounding them.

As she collects her duffle bag from the back of the bus, she feels a pinch at the back of her neck, reflexively reaching a hand back only to find her first mosquito bite of the trip. _This really **is **hell_, she sighs. Truth is, despite the fact Lima isn't much of a city, Santana is a city kid through and through. The idea of spending two months in a forested area with bugs and wildlife, spending _two fucking months_ reeking of bug spray, is absolutely mortifying. As she scratches at the back of her neck she quite honestly starts to wonder if even a car is worth all of this.

The next hour passes by as a painfully slow crawl, a light snack happening before the sizeable group is subjected to some strange sort of introductory assembly type thing―totally the type of thing that Santana would skip if this were school. She doesn't really pay any mind to what's going on around her up until she hears a car door slam shut. She looks over in the distance to see a slight blonde girl pulling a suitcase out of a Benz. The girl exchanges hugs with an older woman and man―presumably her parents―before a counsellor rushes over to collect her.

Santana watches in interest, something about this new girl being different... well, something beyond the fact that she was the only one not on one of the buses. The counsellor leads her over to the opposite side of the group from Santana, and, even from a distance, she can see that the girl's expression reads frazzled. She looks like she's just been dropped off in a Tijuana back alley rather than 'God's Country'―which, creepily enough, is the actual name of the camp. As Santana watches the mouse-like girl she smiles and slightly shakes her head. _Bingo_. The new girl seems like the perfect candidate for a friend for the summer: doesn't seem to know anyone else and looks like she'd be easy to boss around―both important qualities to Santana.

When the homo-tastic little group hoorah breaks up, the group is split into four smaller groups, each distinguished by colour. Santana is designated to the blue team along with some girls she recognizes from Lima Middle (but could care less about acknowledging) as well as the blonde buzzkill boy from the bus. She groans, realizing that if these are the people she's going to be eating, sleeping, and spending her time with, these two months are going to be even longer than she anticipated. She watches and waits with bated breath to see what group her mystery blonde is going to be put into, only cracking a wry smile when the girl is carted over to her corner of the veritable square to join her team. _Excellent_.

Once the teams have been decided, they are led to their respective cabins―the boys on one side of the ravine that splits the large campsite and the girls on the other, separated further by colour group. Santana practically follows her mystery blonde once they're carted into their wooden home for the next two months, wanting to make sure to get the bunk either above, below, or next to the girl. Quite frankly, this is probably the most work she's put into making a friend, but something about this girl makes it seem worth the effort. She manages to snag the lower bunk right next to the blonde's lower bunk, and some unpacking happens before the group is given free time to associate with each other and explore the grounds.

Santana steps out of the cabin and looks around, a smile spreading across her face as she catches sight of the blonde head that she's looking for, just across the field, leaning against a tree. She stalks over determinedly, simply grabbing the girl's arm and pulling her along as she passes by.

The girl jerks her arm away. "_Excuse_ me?" she questions petulantly. "Who do you think you are?"

Santana turns around with a smug grin, shooting a not-even-subtle once-over along the girl's body. "I'm Santana Lopez," she says simply as she lifts her eyes to lock with hazel ones. "And we're gonna be friends this summer."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Thanks for the alerts/comments/favs :) Let's try another chapter and see how it goes, shall we? (Picking up right where we left off...)**

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><p>The blonde arches an eyebrow and laughs in slight disbelief, looking at Santana as if she's just escaped from the nearest asylum. "Don't you think that's a little presumptuous of you? I mean, we don't even know each other."<p>

Santana arches an eyebrow of her own. "Well, I already told you _my_ name, so you know me... who the fuck are you?"

The blonde's eyes widen at her choice of words and she looks around worriedly. "You're gonna get us in trouble talking like that," she near whispers.

Santana huffs a laugh. "I'm thinking you don't even know what trouble is..." she trails off, running a gentle finger down the girl's forearm, smiling at the goosebumps that rise in response. "―_Yet_," she adds with a smirk and a raise of her eyebrows.

The blonde tugs her arm away, rather crossing both of them in front of her body and straightening her posture, pressing her lips into a thin line. "I don't think I care to find out, either. I'm already about half convinced you're clinically insane."

Santana softens her expression and smiles earnestly. "Look mystery girl, I don't know anyone here and you don't seem to know anyone either... I just figured since we're both the new kids on the block that it'd be cool if we got to know each other," she explains with a slight shrug.

The girl still has a wary eyebrow raised but lightly nods. "Ok. I suppose that sounds alright."

Santana smiles wide, before slightly pursing her lips. "So... should I just call you 'mystery girl', then?" she questions playfully.

The blonde's eyes widen, and she actually looks a little flustered as she speaks. "Oh, I'm sorry. I'm Quinn," she greets with a bit of a blush and shy smile, extending her hand for a handshake.

"'Quinn'," Santana repeats as if testing out the name in her mouth, taking the blonde's hand into her own, letting her thumb brush across the back, the girl's skin being exceptionally soft. "I like that. Though, to be real, I'll probably just call you 'Q'."

Quinn looks down with a smile, shaking her head with a bit of a chuckle. "Ok, '_S_'."

Santana smiles wide and though their hands stop shaking, they stay conjoined for a long while, neither pulling away.

Santana tugs the girl's hand lightly. "Alright, now come on."

The blonde reluctantly nods, and the pair walk hand in hand with Santana leading. They continue on for about five minutes, through the forest, before Quinn breaks the amicable silence.

"Where are we going?" she asks curiously, noticing the forestation has grown steadily denser as they've proceeded, barely any sunlight making it through to them anymore.

Santana slightly shrugs but doesn't look back. "No idea," she answers flippantly as she steps over a tree root.

Quinn stops walking abruptly, pulling the brunette to a stop as well. "Do you know the way back?"

Santana rolls her eyes pronouncedly as she turns to face the girl at her back. "I think I can manage without a trail of breadcrumbs, Hansel," she snarks, unable to fight the annoyance that creeps into her voice.

Quinn's brow furrows and she glances back the way they came, starting to wonder why she followed this random, potentially crazy girl all the way out here in the first place.

When Santana notices the girl's hesitance, her expression softens again. "Look, Q... we're only five minutes out of camp, and I've got 3G on my phone"―another thing she's not allowed to have―"so we have a map if we get completely ass-backwards lost."

The blonde looks over uncertainly for a long moment before she just sighs and nods. "Ok, Gretel," she teases with a bit of a smirk. "But if we run into any candy houses, I'm out of here."

Santana laughs lightly before nodding in return, wearing a sizeable smile as she starts to walk again.

It's about another five minutes before they reach a clearing, which happens to be at the mouth of a lake. They seat themselves on a fallen log, and Santana starts rooting through her pockets. Quinn's eyes widen when the brunette pulls a cigarette out of a tampon case.

"So you don't go to church either, huh?" Santana questions as she continues to root through her pockets, this time looking for a lighter.

"I do," Quinn responds simply, looking down at the water with a hand clutching the small gold cross around her neck self-consciously.

Santana looks over curiously. "Then how come you don't know anyone here?"

"I just moved to Lima. My parents thought this camp would be a good way to get to know some people before the start of the school year."

Santana nods lightly in comprehension. "Sorry."

Quinn looks over in confusion. "For what?"

Santana shrugs as she lights the cigarette. "It's Lima," she says simply.

Quinn slightly chuckles, sensing that they might actually get along after all, finding something truly intriguing about this mysterious girl―this girl who seems to insist on breaking the rules. Cussing, smoking... she can hardly wait to see what's next. She knows her parents would hate Santana instantly and, if she's honest, that's part of what makes her all the more fascinating.

After a couple drags, Santana holds the cigarette out towards the blonde, who just stares at it uncertainly. She laughs softly, "Never tried?"

Quinn shakes her head bashfully.

Santana smiles before retracting her hand. "That's alright. You don't have to try if you don't want to," she says simply as she takes another drag, blowing it out in rings.

The blonde watches in interest as the small white rings drift into the air and dissipate into nothingness. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't curious..."

Santana looks over with a raised eyebrow. "Is that _all_ you're curious about?" she asks suggestively with a crooked grin, raking her eyes over the blonde once more.

Quinn scoffs and lightly shakes her head, already sensing that the girl's main goal here is just to get a rise out of her... but she'd be lying if she said that the way Santana is staring isn't giving her an unexpected feeling in the pit of her stomach, something she hasn't quite felt before. She doesn't say anything in return, but rather reaches over to take the cigarette from Santana's hand, letting her own fingers brush along the length of the brunette's.

Santana feels a bit of electricity run throughout her body from the blonde's gentle touch, and she's completely taken aback by it. She looks at Quinn in a bit of shock, her mind not really understanding the sensation, as the girl raises the cigarette to her lips. She unconsciously licks her own lips as she watches the blonde part hers slightly, wetting them with a quick tongue before wrapping them around the filter. Santana starts to breathe a little thickly, and she's pretty sure it's not from the humidity _or_ the asthma.

Santana cringes, though, when Quinn inhales―too deep, too fast, clearly not having a single clue what she's doing―and consequently coughs her guts out. Santana can't stifle her laughter as the blonde lapses into an absolute fit, beating a fist against her chest as she thrusts the cigarette back in Santana's direction, just wanting it as far away from her person as physically possible.

Santana takes the cigarette and extinguishes it next to her on the log, placing it back into the case for later before sliding closer to the blonde, raising a hand to run it along the girl's back reassuringly. She still can't quite quell her laughter, though, the whole thing being kind of adorable―like a newborn lamb trying to stand but losing its footing.

"Oh God," Quinn breathes out between hacks. "How can you even do that to yourself?"

Santana chuckles and shakes her head. "You just didn't do it right."

The blonde shakes her head as well, breathing out a long, staggered sigh as her breathing returns to a somewhat even pace. "I don't think I'm going to try it again either."

"Quitter," Santana teases lightly, keeping her hand running along the girl's back.

Quinn looks over with an unimpressed stare, her eyes still red and watery, but also a bit of a smile. "You're a bad influence."

"Always," Santana smiles wide, shooting the girl a wink.

Her hand lingers on Quinn's back as they continue to stare at one another, and she's unsure at this point whether it's to suss each other out or something else entirely, but, either way, she can't seem to look away from the girl's absolutely stunning hazel orbs. Rather, she shifts her hand slightly, running her fingertips up the length of the girl's spine, playing with the baby hairs at the nape of her neck.

Quinn shivers lightly at the contact and looks away nervously, her heart beating a little faster than it probably should be. "We should probably get back," she says weakly, though she doesn't actually move at all, liking the feel of the fingers currently tangled in her hair.

Santana nods, but doesn't move either. "Probably," she agrees simply before letting her fingers drift to the side of the blonde's neck, down her shoulder, down and then along her forearm, her eyes following. "You have a shit-tonne of freckles," she observes softly.

"Yeah," Quinn breathes out a bit unsteadily. "They get worse when I'm out in the sun a lot, too. By the end of the summer I might just be one giant freckle."

Santana laughs lightly, still running her fingers softly along the blonde's forearm, feeling how the hairs stand in response. She sighs lightly before running her hand down to take the blonde's into her own and standing. "Shall we?" she asks reluctantly, not particularly wanting to leave at _all_ but knowing there is the potential of getting in trouble (see: losing her car) if they get caught off grounds.

Quinn looks up, just as hesitant, before simply nodding. "Yeah."

They make the walk back a little slower than they walked out, this time walking side by side, still holding hands. They've just about reached the campsite again when Santana pulls Quinn to a stop.

"So..." she breaks their temporary silence, taking another step forward and turning to face the girl. "You think you're gonna be good with this being friends thing?"

The blonde smiles softly, bashfully, and nods. "Yeah, I think we're good."

Santana feels a bit of a flutter in her heart and smiles wide, and it's at this point that she starts to think the summer might not be so bad after all.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: So we're gonna go a little AU here because I decided that rather than creating an OC I want to include another canon character... ;)**

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><p>The first week drifts by in a flash, heavily regimented with lessons and activities and all sorts of other things that Santana could entirely do without. Quinn has been trying to mingle, trying to mesh in with the rest of the blue team, but, much like Santana, she's found that she just has absolutely nothing in common with the Lima Middle girls. As a result, the pair have just been driven closer, spending almost all their time―both free and otherwise―together; a continued series of conversations and stolen, lingering hand holds serving to fortify their bond and push their emotional intimacy to match their near non-existent physical boundaries. It's really all very innocent on the surface, but all the touching and slight flirtation are starting to make both girls feel things that they're not entirely sure they should be feeling.<p>

The only other person the pair have even remotely hung around with during their downtime is actually the blonde buzzkill from the bus―a boy by the name of Sam. Turns out he's all innocent and rule-abiding in that annoyingly naïve way―which usually infuriates Santana, as it did on the bus―but he's just such a fucking dork that it's almost endearing. He plays the guitar during the big gay group sings and waxes poetic for hours on end about all sorts of nerdy sci-fi shit that neither girl particularly cares about.

It's just after lunch when the group is given free time before their afternoon activities and the threesome decide to spend it by the ravine, it being the first day without rain over the past few. The bright, early afternoon sun is shining down making it a beautifully warm July day, the overwhelming humidity having been flushed out by the rain. Santana is seated on the table of a picnic bench with Quinn sitting down on the bench between her legs, her arms draped over the brunette's thighs while Santana uses her hands to play with the blonde's hair―braiding it over and over again, in different ways, different styles. Sam is standing in front of them playing with a football between his hands as he and Quinn lapse into another groan-worthy conversation about Star Wars... or Star Trek... or Star Something-else-Santana-doesn't-give-a-single-shit-about.

Sam points out the football in indication with one of his hands. "You have to admit, though, 'Empire Strikes Back' is _clearly_ the best movie of the series."

Quinn lifts her shoulders slightly. "I don't know... I mean, I like the newer ones."

The boy's eyes widen and his expression drops. "You're messing with me, right?"

"They have better production value, special effects, _and_ better acting," Quinn answers simply.

Sam drops the football to the grass. "You're insane! They're _prequels_!" he says it like a bad word, furrowing his brow and slightly shaking his head. "Santana..." he looks up almost pleadingly. "Back me up here."

Santana just arches an eyebrow and shrugs. "Don't look at me, guppy face. I don't have a single fucking clue what the hell you two are even talking about."

Quinn chuckles in her lap, and it makes her smile. She taps the girl's arms softly so that she'll drop them down before she shifts her hands to start massaging the blonde's shoulders, earning an appreciative murmur in return.

"Mmm," Quinn breathes out, and Santana suddenly finds herself feeling quite flush.

Sam doesn't seem to notice the interaction between the two, still fixated on the conversation at hand. "But how can you even _think_ that?" he shakes his head. "I mean, 'Empire' is when the whole story gets dark, and there's the whole question of whether you can walk away from the Dark Side, be _redeemed_... it's almost religious," he adds thoughtfully.

Both girls look at him like he's absolutely insane.

The boy presses on, though, quickly slipping into his―if Santana's honest, pretty fucking impressive―Darth Vader impression. "_If you only knew the power of the Dark Side. Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father... No, _I_ am your father..._"

"Oh my god," Santana struggles out, her hands stilling on Quinn's shoulders as she doubles over in laughter, her forehead dropping to rest on top of the blonde's head.

Quinn laughs as well, and the sweet, raspy sound reverberates through Santana's skull.

"Really," Sam starts again, in his own voice this time. "How can you beat that?"

Quinn is still slightly laughing as she speaks, her hands raised in submission. "Alright, alright, I've only seen the movies, like, once. It's not like I'm a Star Wars scholar or something."

Santana breathes out a sigh as her laughter quells, her head still resting on Quinn's. She inhales deeply―met by the scent of the blonde's conditioner mixed with sun tan lotion, a slight trace of bugspray, as well as a faintly sweet smell that is uniquely Quinn―and it makes her heart flutter again. It's at this point she realizes that she's crushing, and crushing pretty fucking hard at that.

When she lifts her head again, Sam has picked up the football and is looking pointedly at her. "So..." he starts, tossing the ball to Santana, who lifts her hands reflexively to catch it. "Catch?" he questions with an eyebrow raised.

Santana just smiles and nods, "Sure."

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><p>It's later that night, after lights out, when Santana finds herself lying in her bunk unable to sleep. She turns to her side, looking over at Quinn's sleeping form in the bunk just a few feet away from her own. She can hear the soft murmuring that she's learned is characteristic of the blonde when she's in a deep sleep, and it makes her smile. It's not like this is the first time Santana's had, well, <em>less than pure<em> feelings for another girl. At home she has her best friend Brittany―whose pants she would _die_ to get into despite the fact she would have no idea what to do once she got there.

She starts to wonder if she's using Quinn as a substitute for Brittany, since she's not here, but quickly shakes the thought. Aside from the blonde hair and apparent athleticism, the two really have very little in common. Brittany's all Amazonian tall while Quinn is average height; Brittany dresses like a young fashionista where Quinn clearly hits up vintage shops on the regular; Brittany's into pop music and top 40, Quinn listens to creepy indie shit; Brittany likes Disney movies and other cartoons where Quinn likes film noir and classic Hollywood; Brittany comes from a good, solid family while Quinn comes from a bit of a broken home; and Brittany's, well, a little on the simple side, whereas Quinn seems to be exceedingly smart. The list just goes on and on and―

_No_, this isn't substitution... this is something else entirely.

She's learned a lot about Quinn over the past week beyond the superficial things, like how painfully insecure the girl is despite her stunning good looks. Apparently she was terrorized at her previous school, and she keeps referencing being overweight (which just confuses the fuck out of Santana because, if anything, the girl looks like she could use a nice, fat steak or ten). But that's part of what makes Quinn so appealing. Beyond the obvious physical attractiveness, there's an actual person in there―someone with substance, someone who knows what it's like to not always be the centre of positive attention.

She feels like a total creeper as she continues to stare at the back of the blonde's head, occasionally letting her eyes drift over the girl's silhouette, part of her wanting to leave her own bunk to go cuddle up to Quinn but knowing that the feeling is inappropriate. Hell, even if it _were_ appropriate in _any_ way, shape or form, there's no guarantee that Quinn feels the same way about her... _at all_. Santana's known touchy-feely girls before and she knows that sometimes that's where it ends; but, at the same time, she still can't fight the feeling that what's happening with Quinn―the touching, the closeness, the _intimacy_―is something more than ordinary friendship.

She shakes her head, the long-running train of thought leaving her feeling absolutely exhausted. She lets out a deep sigh as she turns back around, shutting her eyes and just trying to force herself to sleep.

After all, she still has seven weeks to figure it all out.


	4. Chapter 4

Another week drifts by without consequence, things continuing in much the same way as the week prior. The threesome have spent almost all of their free time at the same picnic table, which at this point has been pretty much claimed as their own. (Though it's unspoken, other people have generally steered clear of the table in question.)

It's just after dinner when the campers are given a bit of free time before evening activities, and the three hunker down in their spot. Sam is stretched out on his back on the table while Quinn and Santana are both straddling the bench on one side, facing one another. Sam has his football resting on his chest, though he occasionally tosses it straight up into the air to catch it again. (Santana's honestly starting to wonder if the boy is physically attached to the ball, because he's rarely without it.) Santana has one of Quinn's hands held in her own as she paints the girl's nails a glossy black. They sit in silence for a long while, Santana savouring the feel of Quinn's hand within her own as she meticulously applies the polish, before Sam releases an exhausted sigh.

"You know, I'm usually annoyed when they herd us around like cattle all day, but now I'm just friggin' bored."

Santana looks at the boy, who is staring straight up at the clouds, with an arched eyebrow before she places the brush back down into the bottle. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out her iPod, waving it in front of the boy's face briefly. "I've got games," she says simply.

Sam's eyes widen and he turns slightly to his side. "No way! Do you have Angry Birds?" he questions excitedly.

Santana nods with a soft smile and the boy reaches out to snatch the device from her hand, raising it above his head to play with it. Santana's brow drops and she reaches over to punch the boy's shoulder.

"Ow," he recoils slightly. "What the hell, Santana?"

She points out her finger sternly. "Keep it stealth, trout mouth. You get my iPod taken away and I will fucking _end_ you."

Quinn chuckles, and Sam rolls his eyes but still rolls onto his stomach, propping himself up on his elbows so that he can play the game less blatantly.

Santana looks around slightly to see if anyone's lingering before she reaches into the pocket of her hoodie to pull out an open bag of gummy bears―which, of course, she's not allowed to have―and place it down on the table top.

Quinn's eyes widen at the sight of the candy, and she looks towards the brunette with a bit of a smile. "You've been holding out on me."

Santana pops a bear into her mouth before retrieving the brush with a slight shrug. "Gotta keep things interesting."

The blonde arches an eyebrow. "What else have you smuggled in here?" she asks with genuine curiosity as she uses her free hand to grab a small handful of the candy.

Santana smirks. "That'd be for me to know and you to find out... _if_ I feel like letting you know..." she trails off playfully as she turns her attention back to painting the girl's nails.

Quinn chuckles and shakes her head. "I'm totally gonna go through your bag when you're not around."

Santana looks back up, raising an eyebrow in challenge. "Just try it, Q... I'd be on you so fucking fast you wouldn't even have a chance."

Quinn arches her own eyebrow, this one playful. "_On_ me, huh? Ok," she laughs teasingly.

Sam laughs from his position, though he's still focused on his game, and Santana blushes furiously.

"Whatever. You know what I meant," she argues weakly, though now her mind is completely fixated on what she _didn't_ mean and her breathing is starting to become an issue again.

A bit of a silence settles in as Santana turns her attention fully towards painting Quinn's nails... though, if she's honest, she's conveniently 'missing' the edges a little more often than is entirely necessary, shamelessly giving herself an excuse to caress the blonde's fingers with her own. Quinn's fingers are so dainty, so delicate, the skin so soft and smooth that Santana wonders not only if the girl plays piano, but also what the rest of her feels like...

She shakes the thought, though, rather trying to stay focused on the task that is quite literally at hand.

It's a few long minutes before Quinn clears her throat. "I hate our team," she says simply.

Santana nods. "Yeah, well, I had to go to school with these bitches. Just think about that for a minute."

Quinn visibly shudders, Santana feeling it even in the girl's hand. "Well, I guess I'll be going to school with them in the fall, so..." she trails off for a moment. "Is that what _all_ the girls in Lima are like?" she asks curiously, a little worriedly.

Santana shakes her head. "No, no, not at all. I recognize some of the girls on the yellow team from around town, and they seem like pretty cool chicks. They just went to the K-through-8 school rather than Lima Middle."

Quinn nods in understanding. "Too bad we didn't end up on the yellow team, then," she sighs out.

"Yeah," Santana nods in agreement.

"What's with them splitting us into colour groups anyway?" Sam asks curiously, a little absently, from his perch atop the table, his attention still centred on massacring pigs. "Are they into gang warfare or what?"

"More like racial profiling," Quinn huffs out. "What a terrible error in judgment to have a _white_ team."

"Yeah," Santana chimes in, though her focus is currently on the blonde's thumb. "What's their cheer gonna be? 'White power'? 'Cause that's just all kinds of wrong," she shakes her head.

Quinn shakes her head with a slight smile, staring pointedly at the girl in front of her. "And here we thought segregation was over."

Santana stills her hands and looks up with an adoring smile, feeling a slight fluttering in her chest in response to the smiling eyes she's met by. It's starting to feel like every time Quinn opens her mouth, she falls a little harder.

"And it starts here with the cabins," Sam cuts through her thoughts, seemingly done with the game, as he shifts to face the girls. He places the iPod down on the table in front of his body and props his head on one hand, using the other to point. "Blue cabin, red cabin, white cabin, yellow cabin," he lists off in indication. "All separate."

Santana just shakes her head, "Ridiculous." She paints a final swipe on the thumb between her fingers before flexing the hand slightly to examine her work. "Ok, Q, I think you're done." She looks up with a smile, relinquishing the pale hand in her grasp.

Quinn raises her hand up to eye level to look at the paint job. "You're pretty good at this," she says a bit bashfully, looking over with soft eyes and a smile to match.

Santana lets a cocky grin spread across her face. "I'm good at _everything_," she punctuates with a wiggle of her eyebrows.

The blonde laughs lightly, bringing her hand close to her face to blow lightly on the wet polish. "You're a little bad at the whole modesty thing, though..." she offers teasingly.

Santana rolls her eyes but she's still beaming as she looks over into hazel eyes for a prolonged moment, her heart starting to beat a little faster, part of her convinced she could just stare into Quinn's eyes forever. She shakes her head after a while and turns towards the boy on the table, slightly clearing her throat. "Ok, Sammy-Sam, your turn."

The boy's face completely knots up, "My turn for what?"

"I'm gonna make you all pretty-like," the brunette smirks.

Sam's eyebrows rise, "Oh, hell to the no. There is _no_ way you're painting my nails." He waves his hand out in a gesture of finality.

Santana's still grinning as she shoots a look over at Quinn, who nods in understanding.

Santana stands slightly before pulling Sam's outstretched arm and pushing her weight down onto his shoulder, forcing him flat against the table once more. Quinn grabs his flailing arm and wrangles his hand into her grasp before reaching a hand down for the nail polish. Sam _should_ be able to pull away, the boy being significantly stronger than either of the girls as it were, but the awkward positioning is giving Quinn and Santana the advantage in this scenario.

"Come on!" he breathes out in annoyance, trying to wriggle his way out from underneath Santana, but neither girl relents.

"Stop being so shy, Samantha," Quinn laughs out teasingly as she starts to apply the lacquer to the boy's nails. "We've got to get you all gussied up for the ball!"

Santana's laughing as well, though struggling to keep the guy pinned (and her laughter certainly isn't helping). "Yeah, how else are you gonna get Prince Charming to notice you?" she smirks.

Quinn only gets about a nail and a half haphazardly painted before Sam's strength shines through, even with the awkward positioning, and he yanks his arm away, quickly pushing off of the table and popping up to his feet on the opposite side of the bench.

He groans as he looks down at his nails. "You two are absolutely ridiculous," he grumbles out as he runs a hand over his face.

Quinn just waves a dismissive hand as she caps the nail polish once more, and Santana smirks.

"We're awesome. And you might want to take that off before it dries, princess," she winks, gesturing her head down at the boy's left hand before tossing him a bottle of nail polish remover.

Sam catches the bottle and shoots her a death glare, one that actually makes Santana sit back down on the bench, before he grabs his football from the grass and turns to take off. "You two are dead," he shouts over his shoulder, though it's not quite as malicious as he probably wanted it to sound.

The girls are still laughing as he storms off, both watching him go for a few moments before they turn towards one another and the laughing subsides into shy smiles.

"He's so totally ours for the summer," Santana says with a grin.

Quinn nods, "Oh, definitely. I'm pretty sure he'd do anything we asked him to."

Santana nods in return before another silence settles in, this one slightly awkward, the girls sharing occasional, hesitant eye contact, both of pairs of eyes shifting around in nervousness. It's Quinn who finally releases a sigh, seemingly having grown tired of the lull.

She reaches out and takes Santana's hands into her own, staring down at the more darkly pigmented skin in her grasp. "So when do I get to paint your nails?" she asks simply, her thumbs grazing along long, slender fingers down to the nails in question.

Santana is so focused on Quinn's gentle manipulation of her hands that she doesn't immediately register that anything has been said. When she _does_ become cognizant of the fact that actual words were spoken, she still has no idea _what_ was said. "Hm?" she breathes out, looking up into sparkling eyes.

Quinn smiles, a bit of a knowing smirk tugging at the corner of her mouth. She shifts her hands so that she can twine her fingers with the slightly longer ones in her grip, lifting their hands out to their sides as she slides a little closer along the bench, their knees now touching as well. "I was just asking," she looks out at one pair of hands as she floats them both around their bodies. "When do _I_ get to paint _your_ nails?"

If Santana's honest, Quinn could ask to paint her fucking face with a tattoo needle right now and she'd say yes. Her breathing is nowhere near normal at the moment, and a large part of her is longing for the puffer that is currently safely packed away in her suitcase. She can feel an electric charge running through her body from the points of contact; from her skin straight through her blood, her bones, and into her chest. She swallows thickly and squeezes her fingers against the pale hands attached to her own before letting a playful smile set across her face. "Well, you can paint my nails when you have a colour other than black to do so with," she smirks.

Quinn shakes her head lightly. "Racist."

Santana scoffs a laugh, dropping her head and shaking it before looking up with an eyebrow arched. "You really think you're hilarious, don't you?"

"Nah," Quinn responds flippantly, causing Santana's brow to furrow in confusion. She smirks. "I _know_ I'm hilarious," she corrects with a wink.

Santana's smile spreads so wide that it actually hurts and, in this moment, there's only one thing she's completely sure of: that this girl is going to be the absolute end of her, for better or for worse. But, even if it all ends in a devastating crash leaving nothing behind but the twisted carnage of her heart, Santana has a feeling it's going to be worth the ride.

_Six more weeks_... she reminds herself with a smile.


	5. Chapter 5

Another week passes by―this one a little too quickly, if you ask Santana. It's a startling revelation, really, since she had initially expected this to be the neverending summer.

It really is surreal, being locked in this little world away from reality; this world where only the hundred or so campers and counsellors seem to exist rather than the some 6 billion people actually roaming the earth. There are no parents, no school teachers, no bitchy classmates (though there _are_ still bitchy teammates). As time continues to roll on, Santana finds herself really liking it out here... this despite the numerous mosquito bites dotting her body _and_ despite the persistent smell of bug spray―which she's actually starting to grow accustomed to.

Being out here, in the middle of nowhere, is the first time in a long time that Santana has felt the freedom to be someone completely different, to be _herself_. No one here has any expectations about who she is, who she _should_ be, and it's afforded her the freedom to just _be_. It's liberating in a way she could have never imagined, and she's finding herself starting to feel thankful she's out here rather than rotting away back in Lima. Apparently irony is ironic.

And then there's Quinn and Sam, who happen to make being out here even easier, if not better. Despite the shittiness of the Lima Middle girls, she has her own rock solid three man crew, a crew that just happens to be composed of the best people she could have ever imagined meeting. Sam's turning out to be her homeboy, like Puck back at home but with less of the unwanted sexual advances. And the nerdy shit? Well, Santana can deal with it... hell, it's Quinn who ends up actually participating in the conversations 90% of the time anyway.

And, finally, there's her. _Quinn_.

Quinn, who was supposed to be an easy mark for a friend; Quinn, who was supposed to be Santana's second in command, her lackey; Quinn, who came out of fucking nowhere and managed to wedge her way into Santana's usually impenetrable heart. It's at once amazing and terrifying the colossal impact the blonde has had on her in such a short amount of time. Rather than turning Quinn into her subordinate, she's managed to do the exact opposite―put the girl on a pedestal and practically worship at her feet. It's not what she wanted coming into this whole experience, and least of all what she expected, but she's slowly starting to wonder if it's what she's always needed―for her heart to knock her ego down a peg or two.

It's morning, at least in the technical sense since the time says a.m., but it's still so early that the sun has barely started to rise. Santana has been up for over an hour already, her mind running rampant with thoughts that she can't quite categorize and that a large part of her knows she shouldn't be having. She sighs as she stares up at the bottom of the bunk above her head, drawing Quinn's name with her finger over some old graffiti that's marking the wooden slats, up until she hears a matching sigh from her left. She drops her head to the side to see Quinn looking over from her own bunk with a soft smile.

"Good morning," the blonde whispers, quiet enough to not be intrusive but still loud enough for Santana to hear.

"Morning," Santana lets out softly before turning her body to face the blonde as well, taking it a little bit slower than she normally would so that her sleeping bag doesn't rustle too loudly. "Did I wake you?" she asks softly, a slightly apologetic tone to her voice.

Quinn just shakes her head. "No, no. Not at all."

Santana nods, but her brow furrows. "It's still hella early, you should try to get some more sleep."

Quinn just shakes her head again. "I'm awake now," she says simply before arching an eyebrow. "What are _you_ doing up?"

Santana shrugs a shoulder. "I don't sleep much."

She says it simply, like it's an answer with a built-in explanation, but Quinn's expression doesn't change, obviously not thinking it an adequate response.

Santana rolls her eyes and shrugs again. "I just don't. Not even when I'm at home. I can get in bed and stay there for 8 hours, sure, but I'm probably only gonna sleep for, like, 4 of those hours."

Quinn nods. "What do you do the rest of the time, then?"

Santana pauses for a moment, unsure of how she wants to answer the question. "Think," she says simply when she finally speaks.

Quinn's brow furrows. "Think about what?"

Santana bites her lip slightly, shifting her eyes around a bit nervously. "Stuff... just whatever happens to be on my mind at the particular moment." '_You_' is what she really wants to say, but she figures it might not be the wisest move.

Quinn nods, and a silence settles in for a few long moments before she glances over to the clock on the wall. "Well... we've still got an hour before wake-up... what should we do?" she asks curiously, turning her head to look at the brunette again.

Santana just smiles, knowing _exactly_ how she wants to answer _that_ question. "Get dressed."

* * *

><p>It's only about five minutes before the two girls exit the cabin, quickly and quietly, trying not to wake anyone else. It's dawn, the sky light enough to illuminate their surroundings but still not light enough to indicate that the sun has hit the horizon. The grass is covered in dew and there's a bit of a fog floating around the open field. The air is fresh and moist but not humid, and it's actually quite a nice morning. They link hands, almost automatically, as soon as they step down onto the grass. They walk side by side, their shoulders touching, with Santana leading―knowing exactly where she wants to go.<p>

They walk on for close to ten minutes through familiar surroundings before they reach a familiar clearing and move to sit side by side on the fallen log. As refreshing as the air is, it still has the residual night chill, so the girls shuffle close together to share their body heat.

It's only a few moments before what Santana had planned comes to fruition, and her face splits into a bit of a smile.

"Oh my god," Quinn breathes out softly. "It's so pretty out here," she observes simply, the sun starting to hedge along the horizon, tinting the amazingly calm surface of the lake a gorgeous golden hue.

Santana just nods with a satisfied smile before reaching into her pocket and pulling out a cigarette and a lighter. She raises the roll to her lips and lights it before Quinn looks over, chuckling softly.

"I still can't believe you're a smoker," she smiles with a slight shake of her head.

Santana exhales a stream of smoke before turning towards the blonde with a furrowed brow. "I'm not."

Quinn arches an eyebrow and purses her lips slightly, clearly unimpressed. "I've seen you smoke at least ten times since we've been here."

Santana just shakes her head with a bit of a 'so what' expression as she raises the filter to her mouth to take another drag.

"You're smoking _right now_!" Quinn laughs lightly.

Santana shrugs as she exhales. "I started when we got here."

"_What_?" Quinn asks reflexively, finding herself feeling increasingly confused. "Why?"

Santana just shrugs again. "Ain't shit else to do around here."

Quinn laughs lightly, wrapping her hands around the brunette's bicep as she leans her head to settle it on the girl's shoulder. She breathes out a contented sigh.

Santana smiles at the weight of Quinn against her and her heart rate picks up a little. The next drag is, frankly, a little shakier than the ones prior.

They sit in silence for a few long moments, both staring out at the rising sun, listening to the birds and insects singing their morning symphonies, before Quinn lowers one of her hands, reaching out to gently coax the cigarette from Santana's fingers.

Santana looks over with an arched eyebrow. "Thought you weren't gonna try again?"

Quinn smirks. "'Ain't shit else to do around here'," she echoes, squeezing the girl's arm with the hand that is still possessively wrapped around it.

Santana smiles, slightly bashful, watching as the blonde studies the paper roll currently held between her thumb and forefinger intently.

"So... how do I do this 'right', then?" she lifts her head to look over, a quizzical eyebrow raised.

"Well, for one, don't breathe in like you're fucking gasping for air," Santana smirks, earning a chuckle and a roll of hazel eyes in response. She shrugs. "Just suck the air―_slowly_―into your mouth... and then you can either inhale it further or just blow it out."

Quinn furrows her brow and lightly nods as she processes the information, turning her attention back to the cigarette. She hesitantly raises it to her lips, licking them slightly―which makes Santana's breath hitch a little―before wrapping them around the paper filter. She inhales slowly, managing not to cough, but quickly blows it back out. Santana smiles in satisfaction at the blonde's success, but Quinn still pushes the cigarette back in her general direction. Santana takes it back between her fingers and looks at the blonde somewhat curiously as the girl settles back onto her shoulder.

"Still tastes like shit," Quinn says simply, and Santana laughs.

"Yeah it does."

Santana can feel Quinn smile against her shoulder and it only makes her own smile spread further. Quinn slides her hand down to rest atop the brunette's, running her fingertips gently along the slightly longer digits beneath her own.

"Can we just stay here forever?" she inquires softly.

Santana's attention snaps away from their hands and she lightly sighs, wishing with the entirety of her being that they feasibly _could_ just stay in this same spot―_their_ spot―forever.

"If it were up to me, then yes," she answers honestly, sliding her hand out from beneath the blonde's, but only so that she can wrap her arm around the girl's slight form, pulling her impossibly closer.

It's the closest contact they've had, really. Their sides nearly pressed against each other, without the obstruction of their arms. Santana feels a tightness in her chest and butterflies in her stomach, butterflies whose fluttering is far overshadowing her hunger. She butts out the cigarette and tosses it towards the edge of the water before releasing a contented, albeit slightly shaky, sigh and dropping her head to rest atop Quinn's.

_This is it. This is the thing they all talk about_, she thinks to herself, and she quickly decides that, no matter what it takes, she's going to walk out of this experience with Quinn on her arm and Quinn's heart in her hands.


	6. Chapter 6

It's Tuesday, just a couple days later, when the normal routine gets shaken up a little bit. Instead of proceeding to their afternoon activities, as they have daily for the past three weeks, the blue team is split into two smaller groups to encourage a bit of friendly competition within the team. Of course, it comes as a bit of a surprise, and had Santana realized what was about to go down, she wouldn't have been standing directly next to Quinn when it did.

A counsellor moves down the line, numbering each person as either a one or a two, and Santana's heart almost drops out of her chest. Santana becomes a one and Quinn becomes a two, and the girls quickly realize that they're not going to be spending their afternoon together.

"Ok, split up, guys!" one of the leaders announces, in an almost mockingly cheerful tone, once everyone's been numbered. "Ones are over here with me, and twos are over there with Colleen."

The girls share a sad smile and a lingering stare, and when Santana finally tears her eyes away and turns to leave, she feels Quinn's hand lightly grasp her own. She turns back with an eyebrow arched, her skin tingling at the contact.

"I'll still see you at dinner, right?" Quinn asks softly, looking surprisingly vulnerable.

Santana nods and shifts her hand so that she can squeeze the pale one now within her own. "Even if the world ends," she smiles reassuringly.

Quinn smiles solemnly and nods, pulling her hand away slowly, letting her fingertips brush along the length of Santana's own before turning to head to her group for the day.

Santana sighs and watches the blonde go, watching how her dress flows around her body in the warm breeze, and it's only when she feels a hand come to rest on her shoulder that she snaps out of it. She turns her head to see Sam standing next to her.

"I take it you're a one?" he smiles.

Santana tries to muster a smile, but it's not nearly as bright as she wishes it was. "Yup. I guess it's just me and you," she says playfully, trying to fight the sadness, as she reaches a finger out to poke his side.

He jumps away slightly with a bit of a chuckle and pulls his arm back to lightly punch her shoulder. "Right on," he nods.

* * *

><p>It's about two hours into some mundane lesson, in a room that is nowhere near air conditioned, that Santana finds herself literally having trouble staying awake―the wholly uncomfortable plastic chair she's sat in being the only thing really keeping her cognizant―and her mind starts to wander. She starts wondering if she'd be having an easier time staying awake and aware if Quinn were here... wondering what kind of jokes they'd be making about the useless shit they're learning... wondering if Quinn's skin would be dotted with small beads of sweat like her own... wondering what parts of their bodies would be touching...<p>

A bit of a shiver runs through her at the thought, and she drops her head to rest on her hand as her mind continues to drift.

"I wonder what Quinn's doing..." she breathes out softly, thoughtfully, a large part of her surprised she said it aloud.

Sam looks over from the neighbouring chair with an arched eyebrow. "You two really are attached at the hip, huh?" he whispers. Though they _are_ in the back row of seats, it's still a relatively small room, and chances are anything above a whisper would result in reprimand.

Santana slightly stiffens and her eyes briefly widen at the boy's words, but she just sighs and relaxes again with a bit of a shrug. "We just get each other, I guess."

Sam nods before shaking his head with a silent chuckle. "Yeah, you two are like the impenetrable force."

Santana looks over at the boy for the first time with an arched eyebrow of her own. "What are you even talking about? You hang out with us all the time..."

"Ah yes," he breathes out with a soft smile before shifting into a high-pitched, oddly nasal voice. "_Strong am I with the force, but not _that_ strong_."

Santana's brow furrows as she continues to stare at him, now a little critically. "I'm seriously starting to think you failed an English class at some point," she says flatly.

Sam raises a hand to his chest, looking positively offended. "It's Yoda!" he whisper-yells

Santana's expression morphs into confusion and she just shakes her head lightly. "Yeah, I don't know all that much about yodelling."

Sam chuckles softly and bumps the girl's shoulder with his own. "Star Wars," he clarifies.

Santana rolls her eyes with a bit of a scoff. "You know, it would be _so_ much easier to be friends with you if you weren't such a fucking weirdo."

The boy arches a playful eyebrow in return. "It'd be a lot easier to be friends with _you_ if you didn't constantly make fun of my mouth."

Santana shrugs. "Not my fault god gifted you with a fucking Hoover on your face."

Sam laughs, perhaps a bit louder than he intended, and it draws the instructor's attention.

"Samuel, Santana, please?" he bleats, and they both nod in acquiescence before he turns back to the whiteboard.

Santana just sighs, pushing Sam's shoulder playfully before chancing a glance up at the clock. Another three hours to go before the end of this freak show, and, really, it feels like a fucking lifetime.

* * *

><p>The afternoon finally wraps up around 5:30, and Santana finds herself practically sprinting back towards the blue cabin. She bursts through the door and quickly scans the inside only to find that Quinn's group hasn't gotten back yet. She sighs and grabs a shot from her puffer before she heads back outside to the picnic table, taking a seat up on the table top and resting her chin in her hands. <em>Longest fucking day ever<em>, she sighs.

It's a few minutes before she can see Sam approaching from the boys' side of the ravine and she arches an eyebrow, wondering if it would even be possible for him to look any more country. He's wearing a plaid, sleeveless button-up and faded blue jeans, walking at a slow pace with that damn football in one of his hands and a long piece of grass sticking out of his mouth. Santana almost laughs at the sight.

He crosses the small bridge over the water and approaches with a bit of a smile. "So, you took off pretty fast. Where's the fire?" he questions playfully as he takes a seat next to her, discarding the piece of grass.

She scoffs lightly as she looks him over once more. "You tell me, cowboy," she teases with a smirk.

Sam releases a small chuckle and shakes his head as he turns his gaze forward. "Hey," he says simply with a slight raise of his chin. "Here comes your girl."

Santana turns her eyes out across the field to see Quinn jogging over, and she can't fight the painfully wide smile that crosses her face, nor can she fight the way heart starts beating against her ribcage with force. As stupid as it sounds, she's not sure she's ever been so excited to see anyone in her entire life.

She hops up to her feet but immediately balls her fists at her sides, if only to keep herself from moving. A large part of her wants to run to meet the girl halfway, but she also realizes that it might all be a little too 'romance novel'. Instead she stands stock-still, watching as Quinn quickly crosses the field, the hem of her dress bouncing around her knees, her modest chest bouncing up and down, her blonde hair bouncing around her shoulders, an equally wide smile across her face.

Much to Santana's surprise, Quinn doesn't stop when she arrives, but nearly tackles her back onto the bench with a hug that Santana gladly returns. She instantly forgets the entirety of the day, her sole focus being the feel of Quinn's body pressed against her own―small, pale arms hooked possessively around her neck, sharp hip bones pressing into her midsection, the fast-beating rhythm of Quinn's heart rattling against her chest, battling the rhythm of her own heart.

Her eyes close and her mind clouds with the scent of Quinn's conditioner and the slightly musky smell of stale sweat. "I missed you," she breathes out softly, only tightening her grip around the blonde's small frame as she does. She honestly feels stupid for saying the words, _especially_ when they've only been apart for five fucking hours... but the fact is, aside from when they've been sleeping, five hours is the longest they've been apart since the day they met.

"I missed you, too," Quinn says in return, and Santana immediately relaxes, all reservations about words spoken instantly drifting away.

It's just a hug, but it lasts far longer than any other embrace Santana has ever had, and her heart is beating a lot faster than it ever has before, and she's starting to wish she had her puffer again.

"I fucking hate everyone here except for you," Quinn says softly, and though Santana's slightly taken aback by the fact that Quinn actually _cursed_, she doesn't miss the sincerity in her slightly shaky voice.

"Same," she breathes out in return, and it's the truth, too. Part of her wants to never let go of the girl in her arms, fearing she might just disappear.

"Uhh, hi?" a deep voice cuts in.

Both girls laugh and pull back slightly, enough to look over at the bench but also keep a single arm wrapped around one another. Sam is staring at them with a hand raised in the air and a slightly offended expression on his face.

Santana furrows her brow and purses her lips in mock-thought. "I don't know, Q... what do we think about Sammy-Sam?"

Quinn plays along, raising a hand to her chin and looking up for a pensive moment before shrugging. "I guess he's acceptable."

Sam lightly scoffs and rolls his eyes. "You two are impossible."

Quinn slides her free arm back around Santana's front, linking her hands at the girl's hip and dropping her head to rest on her bare shoulder. "We're amazing and you know it," she smiles.

Santana looks away, sure there's a blush across her face at the feel of Quinn's hands grazing the patch of bare skin between her jeans and her top.

Sam waves out an indifferent hand. "Yeah, yeah, whatever."

Quinn smiles and nods against the brunette's shoulder. "Maybe we'll even keep you around," she teases.

Santana smiles and looks down at her shoulder only to be met by Quinn's sparkling eyes, her glistening smile, and, as her heart flutters, she can't even remember how she existed without Quinn in her life.

_Five weeks_.


	7. Chapter 7

It's Sunday night and, as usual, Santana is awake well after lights out, left alone with her thoughts and the soft snores and murmurs echoing throughout the small wooden room from campers who've actually managed to fall asleep on time, like clockwork. She's gotten used to it to a certain degree over the past four weeks, but it's still a little bit unsettling at times―the complete and utter silence out here. Back in the city, even if she had nothing else to distract her, she'd have the occasional hum of cars passing on the street, the chatter of people walking along the sidewalk, the rumble of a plane passing by overhead. Here it's nothing but crickets and snoring accompanied by a complete lack of anything else, and it leaves her feeling surprisingly alone.

She can hardly believe they've been out here for a month already, that she's been away from home for so long. It's had its rough points, but, oddly enough, she finds herself not missing Lima at all and slowly starting to dread the prospect of going back. She knows that things will never be the same as they are right now.

For one, though Sam lives in Lima, he goes to some all-boys' boarding school, so she and Quinn won't even be able to see him come September. And then, Quinn. Santana knows things between Quinn and herself won't be the same; there's no way they _can_ be. They won't be living together 24/7, they won't be sharing their meals, their free time, their personal space, their _everything_. The idea of losing all of that sounds pretty fucking horrible to Santana.

She's so lost in thought that she's actually a little bit startled when she hears a heavy sigh come from Quinn's bunk, cutting through both her thoughts and the white noise. She drops her head to the side to look over, but can't make out in the darkness whether the girl is awake or just having an intense dream. She figures it couldn't hurt to find out.

"Q?" she lets out softly, curiously, and when it's met by another sigh she knows the blonde's awake.

Quinn's sleeping bag rustles as she shifts, turning to face the girl across her. "I can't sleep," she whispers.

Santana nods reflexively, though she's not even sure the girl can see it. "Are you ok?" she asks lightly, suddenly feeling a bit concerned.

Quinn yawns, though she struggles to speak through it. "Just thinking about stuff," she shrugs, the action causing her sleeping bag to rustle once more.

"_Shh_!" a hiss cuts in sharply from the bunk above Santana's head.

Half of her really wants to punch the mattress above her own in reprimand, truly giving the bitch something to complain about, but instead she rolls her eyes and unzips her sleeping bag.

Quinn watches curiously as the brunette rises to her feet and tiptoes across the few steps that separate them, getting down on one knee just about a foot away from her face.

She rests her hands on the edge of the mattress and leans in even closer. "Get up and we'll go talk outside so we don't keep these bitches awake," she whispers into the blonde's ear.

Their close proximity, the hot air rushing past her ear, causes a bit of a tremor to run through Quinn, but, much to her relief, Santana doesn't seem to notice. She shakes her head slightly. "But it's after lights out..." she objects with a timid smile, one that Santana can make out with the lack of distance between them now.

She smiles with a bit of a shrug, reaching a hand to tuck some hair behind the blonde's ear. "Well, we'll just sit on the front steps, and if a counsellor comes by we'll tell them the truth. I don't think we can actually get in trouble for not being able to sleep."

Quinn looks hesitant, but she nods.

* * *

><p>It's a few minutes and a few added layers of clothing later when the pair step out into the damp, late night air. The sky is completely clear and the moon is shining bright, adequately illuminating their surroundings, but the lack of cloud coverage is making it quite the chilly night.<p>

Santana seals the door to the cabin behind them before dropping down to take a seat on the top step, leaning her back against the door, tugging lightly on Quinn's hand for the girl to take a seat next to her.

Quinn does sit down, instinctively dropping her head to rest on the brunette's shoulder, and Santana pulls her arm back so that the blonde can settle in properly. She wraps her arm around the girl's slight form, pulling her in close so that their bodies are nearly tucked into one another. They sit in silence for a few long moments before Quinn sighs again.

"It's weird," she lets out softly, and it lingers in the air for a long while before Santana slightly tightens her grip around the girl, trying to lend her the confidence to continue. It works. "I feel a little homesick, but it's for a home that doesn't even exist anymore."

Santana nods silently, waiting for her to continue.

"I mean, I _hated_ Belleville and I would never want to go back, but..." she trails off thoughtfully for a moment. "I guess I just miss the familiarity of it all. Everything's so _new_ right now that it's kind of overwhelming... new town, new people, new school... new _me_," she adds as a seemingly poignant note at the end, but she doesn't elaborate. "It's just all a bit much," she lets out softly, shifting her head slightly so she can look up into soft, brown eyes.

Santana sighs, noticing how Quinn's eyes are glimmering a little bit more than usual, and she quickly realizes that it's the shine of unshed tears. She raises her free hand to run it along the girl's cheek, which just happens to be soft as satin, and Quinn instinctively lifts her head to lean into the touch, leaving the pair at eye level.

Santana's hand stills, but she lets her thumb continue to stroke smooth skin. Their faces are so close together that Santana can feel Quinn's heavier-than-usual breaths brushing across her lips, and it sends an electric charge straight to her core. She can feel darkness cloud her eyes as she lets them briefly drift down to the blonde's lips, which are slightly parted to aid in her laboured breathing. Every bit of want and need in Santana is telling her to just go for it, to lean in and kiss the fucking girl, but the back of her head and the pit of her stomach are there to remind her that something this good probably isn't worth fucking up.

She sighs as she breaks eye contact, looking down and swallowing thickly before meeting hazel eyes again. She drops her hand from Quinn's face and shifts the other up her back to her shoulder, delivering a reassuring squeeze. "You've got me... and when we get back to Lima, you'll meet Puck and Brittany. They're the only people who matter anyway," she smiles softly, twirling blonde locks between her fingers.

Something in Quinn's eyes changes, the girl looking almost disappointed despite the fact she releases a bit of a chuckle. She turns her head out towards the field, shifting slightly in her seat, and Santana drops her arm. "Yeah, it's just... I mean, _high school_," she gestures her arms out in emphasis, seemingly at a loss for how to proceed.

Santana follows the blonde's gaze, clasping her hands in front of her body, and nods a bit to herself, knowing exactly what Quinn's talking about. Despite the fact she's going to high school in her own town, it's still a new school; and if there's one thing William McKinley High School is notorious for, it's for being a social shark tank. The jocks and the cheerleaders rule the school, and anyone and everyone else is a social pariah. It's exhausting to even think about it, and she finds herself sighing.

"Well... do you play any sports?"

Quinn shakes her head softly. "Not really. I mean, I'm not inept or anything, but I'm not all that into it." Santana nods. "I did a bit of cheerleading back in Belleville, but, I mean, where's that gonna get me, right?" she chuckles with a shake of her head.

Santana looks at the blonde like she's certifiable. "Are you fucking kidding me?"

"What?" Quinn asks in confusion, slightly self-conscious.

Santana smiles, "McKinley has a nationally-ranked cheerleading squad."

The blonde arches an eyebrow and she actually looks a little hopeful, "Really?"

Santana nods, her smile unwavering. "The Cheerios."

Quinn can't stifle a laugh. "'Cheerios'?" Santana nods. "The cheerleaders are named after a breakfast cereal?"

Santana softly chuckles. "Yeah, yeah they are... but despite the ridiculous name, they're pretty much the shit. They're an amazing team, and you have to be pretty fucking amazing to get in."

Quinn nods in understanding, but her brow furrows. "You talk as if you know all of this from experience..."

Santana grins. "I've already been recruited."

Quinn actually looks a little impressed at that, and it makes Santana's grin tighten into a bit of a bashful smile. She clears her throat lightly before speaking again.

"You can come to open tryouts when school starts in September. They'll be pretty rough, if Coach Sylvester lives up to her reputation... _but_," Santana grins. "If you _do_ make it, you'll be fucking high school royalty."

Quinn smiles wide, liking the sound of _that_ a _lot_.

Santana arches a curious eyebrow, noticing how the blonde's expression has shifted to an almost smug one. "I take it you're good..."

Quinn nods. "I'm the best."

Santana scoffs. "You wish, Q. You haven't even seen me in action."

Quinn arches a playful eyebrow. "Action, huh?"

Santana rolls her eyes.

Quinn's mouth settles into a soft smile and she drops her head to rest on Santana's shoulder again. "Tell me what Lima's like," she requests softly.

Santana can't fight a slight laugh. "Well, it's a podunk little shit town where everyone thinks they're monumentally better than they are."

Quinn chuckles softly.

Santana smiles at the sound, finding comfort in it, and drops her own head to rest atop the blonde's, reaching an arm out to take a pale hand within her own. "Don't worry about things. We're both fucking hot, so..." she shrugs. "I guarantee you we're gonna run the fucking city."

Quinn laughs again and shifts to wrap her arms around Santana, hugging her from the side. "I kinda love you right now," she chuckles out.

Santana's heart is doing a full gymnastics routine at the girl's words, but she can't fight the instinctive urge to be cocky. "Then it's all going to plan," she smirks with a playful wiggle of her eyebrows.

Quinn scoffs a laugh and rolls her eyes, but shuffles in closer, nuzzling her face into the crook of the brunette's neck. Santana sighs contentedly at the feel.

"Mmm," Quinn hums out, and the sound vibrates through Santana, making her feel quite flush. "You smell good," the blonde whispers out.

Santana laughs lightly. "I smell like bug spray."

Quinn shakes her head slightly, her nose brushing against the brunette's neck. "You smell like Santana."

Santana feels lightheaded at the blonde's words, at the hot breath brushing across the sensitive skin of her neck, at the feel of soft skin grazing her own. Half of her is convinced that this isn't actually happening―that she managed to fall asleep, for once, and this is all just a dream. A long while passes, though, and when she doesn't wake, it becomes glaringly obvious that this is real; Quinn is hugging her, cuddling her, and, quite frankly, Santana doesn't ever want to move again.

She's not quite sure why she does it, but it seems to be what comes naturally. She takes a deep breath and holds it in as she leans down, placing a soft kiss against the head of blonde hair on her shoulder.

She can feel Quinn shiver against her side and she stills, sudden concern washing over her.

"Are you cold?"

Quinn lifts her head and pulls away, placing her hands on her knees as she looks out across the field with wide eyes, seemingly deep in thought. It's a few long, slightly awkward moments before she speaks again.

"_No_," she says softly in response, sounding almost surprised.

Santana furrows her brow and shifts her hand to run it up and down the blonde's back comfortingly. "You're shivering," she observes with equal softness.

Quinn shakes her head lightly before turning to meet brown eyes. "I'm not cold," she says firmly, confidently.

Santana just finds herself feeling completely confused. "Ok..."

Quinn's eyes shift down to Santana's lips for a brief moment, and she settles a nervous lip between her teeth before she looks back up.

Santana arches an eyebrow, the girl's expression not giving her any hints as to what's going on. "Are you alright?"

Quinn nods and her expression softens, as if things seem to finally make sense. "Yes," she says definitively with a bit of a smile. "I am perfectly alright."

Santana's heart flutters again, and she honestly wonders if there's a way to stop that because it's totally distracting. Quinn just sighs and settles back down onto her shoulder.

Santana stares out across the field, wondering what the little display that just took place was all about. It's no mystery where it started. It was after she kissed the girl that Quinn started to kind of freak out a little bit, but then she was...

_I don't know..._ _ok with it?_ Santana muses to herself, letting a bit of a smile creep across her lips at the prospect. It's one thing to know that she has a thing for Quinn―a thing that's growing even deeper with each passing day, a thing that's so blatantly obvious to herself that she doesn't even think about denying it―but it's something entirely different to try to process the idea that the girl might return her affections. It makes her feel an entirely different flutter, one in an area she's never felt one before.

Santana stays lost in thought, confusion, she's not sure for how long, before Quinn releases a bit of a murmur. Santana looks down to see the girl's breathing has grown deep, even, and she quickly realizes that Quinn has fallen asleep on her shoulder. She chuckles softly and lightly shrugs her shoulder, trying to rouse the girl.

"Hey," she breathes out softly. "You still with me?"

Quinn groans lightly, rubbing a heavy hand over her face as she lifts her head. Her eyes slide slightly open, and a lopsided, sleepy smile spreads across her features. "Yeah," she yawns out, reaching her arms up in a stretch. "I think I'm ready to go to sleep now, though."

Santana can't help but laugh softly, Quinn in her current state being just about the most adorable thing she's ever seen―the slightly dishevelled hair, the soft, ethereal look on her face. She nods and rises to her feet, offering the blonde her hand. She leads Quinn back into the cabin and to her bunk. She tucks her in to her sleeping bag, and once the girl is settled, she drops down to one knee, letting a hand brush softly through blonde hair.

"G'night," Quinn breathes out in a barely-conscious sigh.

Santana smiles in return. "Good night."

And it was.

She maintains the motion of her hand until the characteristic murmur escapes the blonde's lips and her damn heart flutters again. She smiles, leaning down and placing a kiss on Quinn's forehead, letting this one linger, letting the smell that is uniquely Quinn's take over her senses, before heading to her own bunk.

_Four weeks_.


	8. Chapter 8

It's Wednesday. It's been perhaps the laziest day of camp so far, all the afternoon's physical activities having been cancelled due to the heat. The temperature is still hovering around 120 with the humidity and it's already past 2pm. Even just fucking existing is miserable at the moment, and escaping the heat when not a single room in the whole facility is air conditioned is nearly impossible.

The only good thing? Santana doesn't mind the heat, not at all. The temperature's just an excuse to miss classes, wear as little clothing as possible, and get tan as fuck―which is a little more in line with what she had originally had planned for the summer, anyway.

As soon as the cancellation's announced, Santana heads back to the cabin and changes into her favourite bikini (she brought three, for the record, because _really_, you can never have too many,) grabbing a towel and her tanning oil before heading out to a familiar spot. She tosses the towel over the top of the picnic table, not wanting to sit directly against the burning hot wood, and settles down atop it. She coats herself in the oil before lying down under the direct sunlight with her sunglasses shielding her eyes (though the sun is so bright that she has her eyes closed beneath them anyway.)

Fact is, she fucking loves the feel of the hot sun against her skin, the feel of the sweat seeping out of her pores, knowing that every single second she's getting a little bit darker and, in her mind, a little bit sexier. It's all just incredibly relaxing... this _despite_ the fact the humidity is doing some funky things to her breathing.

It's nearly an hour, and Santana almost naps out, before Quinn ambles over. Santana can hear her coming, rustling barefoot through the unkempt grass, and she looks over to see the girl wearing a white sundress and some completely oversized 70s-style sunglasses. They share a smile and exchange small pleasantries―it really being too hot to maintain any semblance of intelligent conversation―before Quinn lies out across the side of the bench that is covered by the shade of a nearby tree.

The silence is comfortable and completely relaxing.

It's another half hour before Sam walks over in a tank top and boardshorts, the flip-flops slapping against his feet announcing his approach, holding up an arm to shield his eyes from the sun. He just nods at them both in greeting before lying down on the grass beneath the tree, his head resting on his hands as he watches the few clouds floating across the sky.

Once again, nothing but silence.

_Laziest. Afternoon. Ever._ Santana thinks to herself, and she fucking loves it.

It's a good half hour before anyone speaks, and when someone finally does, it's Sam. He and Quinn fall into a half-hearted conversation about the usual nerdy shit that Santana has no clue about and no interest in, and Santana just tunes out. This continues for a long while before the pair start to mention names that she's familiar with and her ears perk up.

"I guess I'm just trying to figure out what house you'd be sorted into..." Sam trails off, tipping his head to look over at Quinn thoughtfully. "From what I know about you, I'd guess... Gryffindor?"

Quinn scoffs and shakes her head. "No way. Ravenclaw, if anything."

Santana sighs absently from her perch atop the table. "You're _both_ wrong."

Quinn shifts her position, the bench creaking slightly as she does, sitting up to look at Santana with an eyebrow raised. "So, do _you_ have something to say on the matter, then?"

Santana drops her head to the side to see Quinn staring at her discriminatingly and Sam just looking on in slight shock from the ground. She looks over Quinn, who, as usual, manages to look all prim and proper despite the fact they're in the middle of a fucking forested wasteland.

Santana sighs as she turns her gaze back up to the sky. "You're not Hogwarts, you're too... I don't know, _pretty_." Both Quinn and Sam are confused at that. "You're Beauxbaton, without a doubt."

Quinn looks down with a blush and Sam's jaw drops.

"Oh my God, you're right," he lets out in surprise before his brow furrows. "Wait, _you_ know about Harry Potter?"

Santana rolls her eyes beneath her shades.

Sam shakes his head with a smirk as he sits up, leaning his back against the trunk of the tree. "You're secretly just a giant nerd, too, aren't you?" he voices in playful accusation.

Santana laughs in a bit of disbelief and rolls to face the pair, propping her head on her hand. "You fucking wish, fish lips. I _was_ a child once, you know."

Sam shakes his head for a moment, still slightly shocked, before he looks at Santana appraisingly. "I think you'd be Slytherin."

Santana pulls her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose to reveal her eyes as she arches an eyebrow. "I think you'd be a really shitty sorting hat."

Quinn shakes her head with a bit of a laugh. "Yeah, there's no way."

Santana looks at the girl curiously, and Quinn smiles.

"She's Durmstrang."

Santana smiles wide, giving the girl a nod of approval and a wink. While it's probably not the house _she_ would've chosen, she'll totally take it as a compliment. Durmstrang is totally fucking badass, after all.

Sam seems to think it over before his brow furrows again. "Wait, she _can't_ be Durmstrang... she's not a dude."

Both girls look at him like he's grown a second head, but it's Quinn who speaks.

"Uhh... you _do _know that Durmstrang wasn't an all-boys' school in the books, right?"

Sam shrugs, and Santana scoffs as she drops down to her back on the table once more.

"And you call yourself a geek," she teases.

The boy rolls his eyes. "Actually, _you_ call me a geek."

Santana releases a small chuckle before a silence passes over the group.

"So..." Sam starts curiously. "What house would I be, then?"

"Hufflepuff," Quinn and Santana answer in unison before their eyes meet with a laugh.

Sam just rolls his eyes before rising to his feet. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up. I gotta go do some stuff but I'll be back in a bit. Try not to have too much fun without me," he says with a smile before just turning to leave. Both girls watch in a bit of confusion as he departs, but they seem to get over the loss pretty quickly.

Santana takes off her sunglasses and rolls over onto her stomach before relaxing again, closing her eyes as she rests her head flat against the towel, and a long silence passes before Quinn speaks.

"I'm too white for this heat," she breathes out exhaustedly.

Santana shifts towards the edge of the table so that she can look down at the girl on the bench. "Oh, so now you're a liar _and_ a racist," she smirks.

Quinn's eyes slide open beneath her lenses. "_Excuse _me?" she questions in a petulant voice, and it makes Santana feel kind of nostalgic, despite herself, because it reminds her of the day they met. "What exactly have I lied about?" she pushes on in disbelief.

Santana just smiles wide and shakes her head. "And you don't even deny being a racist," she teases.

Quinn rolls her eyes before punching Santana's bare shoulder, a little harder than necessary, perhaps.

Santana slightly recoils with a bit of a reflexive groan. "Ugh, what the fuck, Q?"

Quinn's expression grows disarmingly soft, though, and Santana finds herself unable to stay angry at all.

"What makes me a liar?" she presses.

Santana can't help but smile softly as she looks over Quinn, from head to toe, and damn if she isn't looking particularly good today. "You said you don't tan," she lets out, albeit in a bit of a weaker voice than she had intended.

Quinn's brow furrows and she sits up, examining her arms as she does. "I _don't_. What you're seeing is freckles and they look like a tan from a distance, see?" she holds her forearm out in front of Santana.

Santana rises to her elbow and lifts a hand to run it gently along Quinn's forearm, the hair standing in response. To be fair, a good part of the illusion is freckles, but that's not all it is. She lets her fingers drift softly all the way up Quinn's arm, both pairs of eyes following along, before she slightly shifts the strap of the blonde's dress to the side. She smiles.

"See? Obvious tan line," she says softly, running her index finger across the line of pale, white skin found there.

Quinn looks down at her shoulder and she genuinely looks shocked. It makes Santana chuckle softly as she shakes her head.

"Shit, Fabray, don't you ever look in a mirror?" she teases good-naturedly.

Quinn looks down at the words with an expression Santana can't really read, but she knows things have started to head towards the bad, and she has the sudden nagging feeling that Quinn really _doesn't_ look in the mirror... like, ever. She internally panics a little, trying to figure out what she can say to make it better, letting the hand on Quinn's shoulder shift to play with the ends of her hair.

"It looks good on you," she says with incredible softness.

Quinn's head lifts, and hazel eyes meet brown ones. "You think so?" she asks, sounding nothing if not completely vulnerable and incredibly self-conscious.

Santana feels a sudden heat in her cheeks, and she's hoping it's just from the sun, as she speaks. "Yeah," she lets out, almost breathless. "_You_ look good."

Their eyes hold for a moment, as if Quinn needs to verify that Santana really means what she's saying. When she gets what she needs from the stare, she looks away with a blush, and Santana lets a soft smile spread across her lips. She reaches a hand up to Quinn's cheek, letting her thumb brush against smooth skin, gently coaxing the girl to look at her again.

"You're beautiful, Q. I don't know who it was that was fucking blind enough to make you think that you're not," Quinn chuckles softly at that. "―but you are. You don't seem to know that, and I think you _need_ to know that."

Quinn holds Santana's stare, and Santana's almost sure the girl's about to cry as she settles a nervous lip between perfect white teeth. Santana leans a little closer so that she can pull Quinn into a hug, letting her hand drift up to tangle in blonde hair.

"You really are beautiful, Quinn," she whispers into the girl's ear. "You're beautiful, and just... _please_ tell me you know that."

Quinn's arms wrap around her neck, and it's an odd angle, but she pulls her even closer.

They stay in the embrace for a few prolonged moments before Quinn's hold slackens, and Santana pulls back, reaching out to take one of the girl's hands into her own. Quinn's eyes are red, and there's a tear starting to slip out of one of her eyes. Santana drops her body flat against the table to free her arm so that she can use the pad of her thumb to wipe the salty liquid away.

"You know that, right?" she asks softly.

Quinn nods sheepishly, but Santana's not entirely sure she believes it. She cranes her neck and leans forward to plant a kiss onto Quinn's forehead before pulling back with a soft smile.

"Well, good then," she smiles, letting the girl off the hook, and Quinn manages to muster up a smile in return. It makes Santana's heart flutter, and she immediately decides that she's gonna do whatever she can to keep that smile on her face forever.

"Do you want to play cards?" Quinn asks suddenly, and it's kind of out of the blue, but Santana figures she's a little sick of having the spotlight on her, understandably so, and so she nods.

"Sure."

* * *

><p>Surprisingly, playing cards are one of the few items on the list of things they were actually <em>allowed<em> to bring to camp... though, to be fair, the camp's organizers probably didn't account for the fact that Santana would use said cards to teach Quinn how to hustle her way through a game of Texas Hold 'Em.

Teaching Quinn the game turns out to be a bit of a task, though, seeing as the girl doesn't even know how to play straight up poker. Santana spends a long while explaining the different possible hands to her before she shifts her focus to the rules of Hold 'Em, specifically. She's just explaining 'the flop' when she catches movement over Quinn's shoulder. She looks over to see Sam approaching in the distance, carrying his pillow―which is, naturally, in a Star Wars pillowcase.

Santana releases a bit of a laugh at the sight because, really, is he five?

Quinn looks at her curiously, noticing that her attention has shifted elsewhere. "What is it?"

Santana gestures her chin in the direction of the approaching boy, who is wearing a curiously smug smile. "Samantha's coming back... and he has his pillow with him..." she draws out warily, starting to wonder what exactly the boy is up to.

Quinn turns around to see the same sight, and, as Sam gets closer, Santana arches a curious eyebrow.

"Where'd you go? You've been missing the shitshow of teaching Q here how to play Hold 'Em," she smirks. Quinn slaps her shoulder gently with a pout, and Santana just smiles fondly and winks.

"I had things to do..." Sam lets out mysteriously, his grin not faltering as he places the, seemingly heavy, pillowcase down between his legs.

Quinn arches an eyebrow and points down at it. "What's with the pillow, anyway? You planning on taking a nap?" she asks genuinely, and Santana can't stifle a laugh and a roll of brown eyes at her naivety.

Sam's smile just spreads as he leans down slightly. "Not exactly..." he trails off as he reaches both of his hands down into the pillowcase. "Just working on a little thing that I like to call _revenge_," he emphasizes before pulling his hands out, each supporting a water balloon about the size of a softball.

Santana's eyes widen. "_Shit_," she breathes out quickly before climbing off of the bench as fast as she can, but it's useless because she's barely gotten to her feet before a balloon explodes against her chest, covering her skin in uncomfortably cold water that makes her gasp.

Quinn doesn't manage to get very far either before a balloon makes impact with the back of her dress, soaking through the thin fabric and making it translucent, eliciting much the same response.

The two girls scramble, but they know from their evening activities that it's pretty much futile. Sam's a fucking beast when it comes to running.

* * *

><p>By the time the dinner bell rings, not even 15 minutes later, all of the balloons have been spent. Both girls are well soaked through, though they <em>did <em>manage to pelt Sam a few times, and all three of them are laughing.

"We're going to be late for dinner," Quinn says as her laughter quells, watching as the other campers start to move like cattle towards the dining hall.

"Yeah," Sam nods in agreement as he looks down at his shirt. "I should probably grab a dry shirt, though... maybe even a hoodie."

Santana just nods as she grabs her towel from the table, though she doesn't even think about using it for herself. Despite the fact the air has cooled off quite significantly and, if she's honest, she's a little bit cold with the wetness, she walks over and, without asking, wraps it around Quinn's shoulders.

Quinn looks over with a soft, thankful smile.

"So, I'll see you guys in the dining hall?" Sam asks simply, and both girls nod. He just grabs his pillowcase from the grass and shoots a wave before jogging off to the bridge and towards his cabin.

Quinn and Santana share a bit of a smile and a laugh before starting to head off to their own cabin.

It's a short walk, but a sharp wind cuts across the open field and Santana finds herself shivering and crossing her arms in front of her body to keep some of her body heat in. Quinn sees it and sidles up to her, wrapping an arm, as well as half of the towel, around Santana's shoulders.

Santana looks to her left with a bit of a sheepish smile. "Thanks."

Quinn scoffs lightly. "Thank _you_ for giving me the towel despite the fact you're the one who's practically naked," she says a bit teasingly.

Santana just shrugs. "What can I say? I lead a clothing-optional life."

Quinn chuckles and shakes her head. "I guess I'll have to keep that in mind."

It's not long before they reach the cabin and, once inside, Quinn gives the towel back, rather grabbing one from her own bag.

Santana takes a blast from her puffer first, the running around having left her a bit winded, before she dries herself off quickly, the lack of clothing really helping in that department. She takes to digging through her bag to find something to wear, and she's just pulled on a dry t-shirt when Quinn's voice comes softly from behind her.

"S..."

She turns around to see Quinn staring at her, albeit a little shyly, still in her dress, and Santana can't fight the way her eyes immediately drift down to where Quinn's nipples are tenting out through the wet fabric. She's pretty sure her mouth has just entered the dry season, although the apex of her thighs seems to have entered the wet one.

Quinn wears a sheepish smile as she speaks. "The zipper keeps sticking because the fabric's wet..." she explains as she turns around, sweeping her hair over one shoulder so that Santana can see the zipper in question. (Though, really, Santana's eyes are sweeping over pretty much every part of Quinn _aside_ from the zipper at the moment.)

Quinn looks back at Santana over her shoulder. "Can you help me?" she lets out softly.

Santana nods reflexively but finds herself pretty much frozen in place. It's a longer pause than it probably should be, and that's only made abundantly clear when Quinn clears her throat.

"Santana?" she lets out curiously.

"Yeah," Santana says quickly with a shake of her head, the word springing her back into action.

She takes the few small steps towards Quinn and raises incredibly heavy arms to reach towards the top of Quinn's dress. Her hands are shaking, and she's pretty sure it's not from the cold because it's actually pretty fucking hot in here... and the temperature only seems to have increased about tenfold over the past couple minutes.

Her cheeks are hot and her heart is racing, and she's wondering if it'd be at all healthy to have another go with her puffer as she reaches clumsy hands out to fumble gracelessly with the zipper. Her breaths are quick and short and, really, when did her asthma get _this_ bad.

It's a struggle, but she does eventually get the zipper undone, though the newly exposed expanse of pale skin in front of her is really doing nothing to help the breathing situation.

Quinn turns around, the front of the dress now hanging a little slack in front of her body, and she's just so close that Santana's pretty sure she can _feel_ Quinn right now, even though they're not touching at all.

Hazel eyes lock on her own and her breathing stops altogether. Quinn's using an arm to hold up the dress around her body now, and she leans in so close that Santana's pretty sure she's gonna have a heart attack and drop dead on the spot. Her eyes instinctively close at the proximity, and her heart thumps hard against her ribs as she feels Quinn's lips make soft contact with her cheek. They stay nestled there, just lingering on her cheek, for a few long moments, and Santana kinda wishes she _would_ drop dead on the spot because, really, what a fucking way to go.

When Quinn pulls away, Santana lets her eyes slide slowly open, and she's kind of unsure what she's feeling... or if she's even in her own body. Quinn's eyes are on fire, and Santana can only imagine that hers are having a little fireworks display of their own.

"Thanks," Quinn lets out softly, a little breathlessly, before turning away.

Santana kind of snaps back into the real world at that and she turns back towards her own bunk, quickly realizing that she should probably dress her lower half. As she does dress, her mind is fucking running a full-on marathon... at warp-speed... or hyper-drive... or light speed... or one of those other fucking nerdy things Sam is always carrying on about. Regardless, she finds herself utterly unable to focus on anything in particular. The only thing she can gather from all that's going in her head is that what just happened was _fucking amazing_, and that she'll do whatever she has to to make it happen again.


	9. Chapter 9

It's Friday when the blue team is released from lessons a bit early before lunch. It's kind of nice because all of the other groups seem to still be locked in their classes and, as a result, the grounds are pretty much empty. Sam heads off to have a shower, and Quinn and Santana settle under a tree by the ravine―the prior day's rain having left the wood of the bench a bit too moist to sit on without the afternoon sun to dry it off yet.

The day is warm so far, but not overly hot―kind of perfect by Quinn's standards but leaving Santana in a hoodie along with her shorts. Santana is sitting cross legged, leaned up against the trunk of the tree, and Quinn is laid out on the grass, her head resting in Santana's lap. Santana is brushing her fingers through long blonde hair as Quinn flips through the library on Santana's iPod, putting together a playlist that's to her liking, each of them with a single earbud in one of their ears.

"You have '19'?" Quinn looks up in a bit of surprise, an eyebrow arched. Santana nods, and Quinn's brow furrows. "I thought you only listened to top 40?"

Santana shrugs. "I listen to what sounds good. And Adele sounds good."

Quinn nods, slightly impressed, before turning her attention back to the iPod. She clicks on a song, one that Santana immediately recognizes, before placing the device down on her stomach and relaxing. "I love this song."

Santana smiles softly, "Me too."

"It's originally a Bob Dylan song, you know..."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah," Quinn lets out softly as her eyes drift closed.

Santana continues the motion of one hand through Quinn's hair, shifting the other to start massaging her scalp lightly. Quinn murmurs a sound of approval and Santana's heart flutters. She takes the opportunity to study Quinn: the soft smile across her lips, the sharp curve of her jaw, the slight tint to her usually pale skin, the soft, golden hue of her hair. It's possible that Quinn is the most beautiful girl she's ever seen, and she's not sure it'd be possible for _anyone_ to be any more beautiful... and that's really only verified when Quinn starts to hum along with the song.

The sound emanating from her lips is soft and sweet, and it's only made all the more pleasant when the girl occasionally drawls out a lyric. With the butterflies that take residence in her stomach again, Santana quickly realizes that, if nothing else, Quinn has probably absolutely ruined her for anyone else.

When the song ends, Quinn's eyes slide open and she looks up at Santana with a wide smile. Santana is still looking down at her in slight amazement, and with Quinn's expression, her impulses take over. She uses a hand to brush stray blonde hair off of Quinn's forehead before letting it rest on her cheek, and she leans down to place a soft kiss on the newly revealed tanned skin, relishing the way Quinn chuckles softly at the contact.

When Santana sits back upright, Quinn is looking up with a curious eyebrow arched.

"What was that for?" she asks airily.

Santana shrugs lightly. "I felt like it."

Quinn smiles bashfully, a bit of a blush playing across her cheeks, and Santana feels her heart flutter again. They exchange shy glances and nervous smiles for a few moments before Quinn reaches her hand up next to her head, letting her palm rest flat on Santana's bare thigh and her fingers stroke gently back and forth across taut, olive skin as her eyes drift shut once more. Santana sighs contentedly at the motion and leans back against the tree trunk, letting her own eyes drift shut, unsure she's ever felt so at peace.

They stay like that for a long while, Quinn's fingers continuing their motion along Santana's thigh, Santana's hands continuing their gentle manipulation of Quinn's hair, Adele continuing to softly serenade them through the headphones, before the sound of grass rustling comes from a short distance away. Both girls crack their eyes slightly and look over to see a wet-haired Sam approaching.

"Hey," he greets with a soft smile, earning likewise greetings in return. "So," he rubs his hands together thoughtfully as he stops a few feet away, staying standing rather than joining the pair on the grass. "Rumour is today's lunch is grilled cheese with bacon."

Quinn immediately pops up to a sitting position, suddenly quite awake, the abrupt action ripping the bud from Santana's ear. "_Bacon_?" she questions in verification.

Both Santana and Sam chuckle, and the boy nods his head.

"Yeah," he continues. "So, I was thinking we should go get in line _now_ so we get first dibs and the best crack at seconds...?" he draws out a bit questioningly, and Quinn hops up to her feet with alarming speed at that.

"Absolutely yes," she says with a firm nod, tossing Santana's iPod back to her like it was day-old trash.

Santana just laughs as she rises to her feet, because, really, as if Quinn could be more adorable.

* * *

><p>It's after lunch, after Quinn hoovers down two and a half cheese and bacon filled sandwiches (which Santana actually finds pretty fucking impressive,) when Quinn and Santana are put on cabin clean up―being paired up alphabetically based on first names having worked out to their advantage. It's the third time they've been on clean up, and they've got a pretty simple routine down: Quinn cleans up the scattered clothes and other personal effects left lying around the cabin and makes the beds while Santana sweeps up. The only difference this time around is that Santana's iPod is playing the playlist that Quinn had compiled earlier in the background.<p>

They make quick and quiet work of the task, and Santana's almost done sweeping when she hears Quinn's voice.

"Have you ever..." Quinn starts, strong at first before trailing off timidly.

Santana turns around to see Quinn's brow heavily knitted, the blonde studying her curiously as she drops to take a seat on the nearest bunk. The room stays silent long enough―aside from the soft music in the background―that Santana arches an eyebrow. "Have I ever what?"

"_You know_..." Quinn intones, looking down with a heavy blush, her hands gripping hard against the edge of the thin mattress.

Santana's eyes widen in realization. "_Oh_..." she voices in surprise, and she can feel a bit of heat cross her own cheeks at the question.

It's not completely out of the blue, after all one of this morning's lessons was on the 'abominable' act of premarital sex, but it still comes as a bit of a shock that Quinn would ask.

She leans the broom against a nearby bunk before walking over to where Quinn is seated. "Yeah... once," she says softly as she takes a seat next to Quinn, finding that her own hands seem to automatically grip at the mattress as well. Their hands are nearly side by side, and Santana stares at them rather than at Quinn as she speaks. "What about you?" she asks curiously, waiting a few long moments before looking up.

Quinn just shakes her head softly, quickly shifting her focus away from Santana's eyes and down to their hands. She moves her hand on top of Santana's, running her fingers gently along the longer ones beneath them.

Santana's breath slightly hitches at the simple contact, and she suddenly finds herself feeling a bit nervous.

Quinn pulls her hand back and shifts to slide it beneath Santana's, their palms brushing together as she loosely twines their fingers. She lifts their hands and slides closer along the mattress, dropping her head to rest on Santana's shoulder as she studies their conjoined digits.

"What was it like?" she asks softly, almost in a whisper, brushing her thumb along the length of Santana's index finger.

Santana kind of loves the way Quinn's caressing her hand right now, but she releases a bit of a sigh at the question. Truth be told, she doesn't remember much of it―at least not the actual _event_, in and of itself. It happened just this past winter, at a party where she and Puck both had a little bit too much to drink and decided to do the thing that everyone always talks about―if for no other reason than to just get it out of the way.

What she does hazily remember are only fragmented bits and pieces―rough hands, skin sliding on skin, a heavy weight above her, an uncomfortable pressure, and then... nothingness. She didn't feel any different, like everyone always said she would. She didn't feel any more grown up or sexy or awesome. If anything, she felt a little bit emptier. The memory is, frankly, a little depressing, and Santana sighs again.

"From what I remember, it was just awkward," she nearly mumbles.

Quinn nods against her shoulder. "Did it hurt?"

Santana shrugs softly. "I don't think so."

Quinn grows impossibly quiet, reaching her other hand out to start drawing lazy patterns along Santana's thigh. "Who was it with?"

Santana sighs again, this not exactly being her favourite line of questioning, but she finds she can't really deny Quinn... not while she's touching her like that. "A guy I was kind of with at the time."

"_Boyfriend_..." Quinn draws out, her hand stilling, and there's a bit of distaste in the word, and possibly even a bit of disappointment. "Are you still together?"

Santana slightly furrows her brow at the question. She and Puck have been many things to one another over the years―including each other's firsts―but 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' has never been one of them. She shakes her head softly. "No. He was never officially my boyfriend and we're just friends now."

Quinn lifts her head, and her eyes are slightly dark and her breathing is a little off, and Santana actually feels a little tremor run through her at the intensity of Quinn's stare.

"Do you have a boyfriend _now_?" she asks softly, and her face is so close that the words brush hot against Santana's lower lip.

Santana just shakes her head lightly before arching an eyebrow, "You?"

Quinn returns the slight gesture, though her stare doesn't waver. Santana's heart starts to beat a little faster, and it jumps when she feels Quinn exhale heavily, the hot air brushing right across her lips again. Her body feels hot, and her palms feel clammy, and with the way Quinn is staring at her, it's just... it's just _too much_.

"Stop looking at me like that," she whispers.

"Sorry," Quinn whispers back, almost breathless, though she doesn't drop her gaze, her eyes flitting back and forth between the brown ones in front of her, seemingly searching for something.

Santana's breathing is shallow and quick, and she's half sure she's going to pass out with the pace her heart is keeping. She swallows thickly in a futile attempt to lubricate her suddenly dry mouth, and the words slip out through her lips before she even knows what's happening.

"Would it be wrong if I kissed you?" her voice comes, rough and deep, sounding almost foreign to her own ears.

"Yes," Quinn breathes out, her voice weak and raspy. Her eyes are incredibly dark and heavy lidded, and if there's ever been a sign...

Santana licks her lips and shoots a glance down at Quinn's pouty, slightly parted lips, and when she lifts her gaze back up to hazel eyes, she's never been more nervous yet sure about anything in her entire life.

"Would you stop me?"

"_Never_," Quinn whispers with a soft shake of her head, her eyes burning deep into Santana's own, telling her everything she needs to know.

Santana's breathing stops completely and things seem to move in slow motion as she tips her chin up slightly, her eyes drifting shut as she cranes her neck to close the miniscule distance that remains between their lips. It's a soft brush first, barely a whisper of sensitive skin against sensitive skin, but even the minute contact sends an absolute shock through Santana's body.

When Quinn doesn't retreat, she raises her free hand to the blonde's neck and kisses her a little more firm, and this time it feels like a fucking electrical storm, running from her lips to her core and all the way out to her fingertips, her toes. Her heart is pounding in her ears and she's sure this is the most intimate experience she's had in her life.

They're not drunk. And it's not sloppy like it was with Puck. And it's not frantic and rushed like it was with Brittany. And Quinn doesn't taste like beer or vodka... she tastes like fucking strawberry lip gloss, and Santana's pretty sure in this moment that it's just about the greatest thing she's ever tasted.

The kiss doesn't progress, but it does linger for a few incredibly long moments before Quinn pulls slightly back, resting her forehead on Santana's, her breathing deep and laboured, one hand squeezing tightly against Santana's, the other hand fisted in the fabric of her dress.

"What are we doing?" she breathes out, a little bit of panic in her voice.

Santana's eyes stay closed, and she struggles to speak through the shortness of her own breath. "I don't know."

Quinn pulls her head away slightly, and Santana's eyes slide open at the sudden loss of contact.

"It's wrong," Quinn says weakly, but she doesn't retreat any further. If anything, she leans further into Santana's touch.

Santana nods lightly. "Yeah... it is."

Quinn's face twists and she looks nothing if not confused. She licks her lips and shoots a quick, thoughtful glance down at the plump, slightly pouting lips in front of her. "I want to do it again."

Santana's heart stalls and her eyes widen, and she's half convinced she's dreaming again... but if ever, _ever_ she's been truly happy in her life, it's right fucking now. "Me, too," she whispers.

Their eyes lock for a hesitant moment before Santana tugs lightly on Quinn's neck to bring her close again, craning her own neck slightly forward to meet her halfway. Their lips hover over one another for a moment, their combined breaths creating a warm blanket of air in the small space between them. The warmth makes Santana feel lightheaded, and a sort of embarrassingly soft moan slips out between her lips before she leans in fully.

The door creaks open, though, and Quinn pops up from the bed at the speed of bacon, and Santana nearly recoils right off of the far edge of the bed.

"Hey girls!" an overly chipper, older redhead greets as she sticks her head in the door. "Just wanted to see how you two were doing..." she trails off, her attention shifting. Rather than looking at the disheveled appearance of the two girls in front of her, though, she looks to the other side of the room, listening intently. "Where's that music coming from?"

Santana's heart is beating hard and fast already, and she slams her eyes shut, half sure she's about to lose possession of her iPod for the next three weeks. Neither Quinn nor Santana answers, and the counsellor takes it as a cue to enter the room. She walks over to the table on the far side of the room that is supporting the mp3 player and picks it up between her hands.

"Whose is this?" she asks simply, sternly, holding it out in the general direction of the two girls.

Quinn's eyes widen before she shoots a glance down at the girl on the bed. Santana sighs and lightly rolls her eyes as she pushes off of the mattress, taking slow steps across the room, raising a hand slightly in indication. "It's mine," she lets out guiltily.

The counsellor―Colleen, Santana thinks her name is―furrows her brow and shakes her head firmly. "I assume you _know_ that we have a strict no electronics policy, correct?"

Santana stops in her tracks, her hands clasped in front of her body, her eyes down on the wooden floorboards where she's digging her toe nervously into a knot, kind of looking like a little girl who's just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. "I know," she answers simply, softly.

The counsellor sighs, flipping the screen on and killing the music before taking the few small steps towards Santana. "Here," she says simply, holding her hand out.

Santana looks up in a bit of surprise, "Ok?"

The counsellor shakes her head. "Don't let anyone else catch you with that, ok?"

Santana just nods as she takes the iPod back into her possession, slightly stunned.

"Ok," Colleen smiles. "Now you two better hurry up. Cabin clean up should take fifteen minutes, tops. You guys are already twenty minutes late for afternoon session."

Both girls nod in understanding.

"Alright, I'll see you girls soon," she smiles before turning to leave.

As soon as she's out the door, both Quinn and Santana breathe out a sigh of relief before turning towards one another with a bit of a laugh.

Quinn shakes her head. "That was―"

"_Close_," Santana finishes.

"_Too_ close," Quinn says, though it seems she's saying it more to herself than to Santana.

"Yeah."

A silence settles in and it's, quite honestly, a little awkward. They both kind of stand still for a long moment before Santana remembers she still has to finish the sweeping. When she springs into action, Quinn does as well, remaking the bed they were just sat on.

It's only a minute or two before they finish, and with nothing left to distract them from each other, their eyes meet nervously again.

"We should go," Quinn says simply.

"Yeah," Santana lets out softly, though she's starting to wonder when her vocabulary became limited to a single word. She shakes her head gently to clear the cobwebs before walking over towards Quinn.

When she reaches Quinn's side, she runs a hand down her forearm, reaching down to take a pale hand into her own. "Shall we?" she asks lightly, a soft smile tugging at her lips.

Quinn's smile is soft to match and she lightly nods. "We shall."

At the words, Santana lets out a bit of a relieved sigh. Quinn's not panicking over what just happened and, really, that's enough. As they walk out of the cabin, hand in hand, Santana's pretty well convinced that the next three weeks are going to be the best weeks of her young life.


	10. Chapter 10

It's been a week. A week since Quinn created a playlist on Santana's iPod; a week since the pair were put on cabin clean up; a week since they finally _kissed_. Santana's been riding a euphoric high ever since, but it's been gradually waning. Fact is, it hasn't happened again. It hasn't even come close to happening again. All things considered, the past week has actually been... well, a little bit awkward. At least for Santana.

It's not that much has changed. Quite to the contrary, it's as if nothing has changed at all. They still hold hands, still crack jokes, there are still little moments of fingers brushing through hair, soft kisses on cheeks and foreheads, cuddling close when the warm days give way into the chill of the evening... but there's nothing else, nothing _more_, and it's surprisingly disturbing.

Santana's not quite sure what she expected to be different, but, really, she expected _something_. She didn't expect Quinn to act like the kiss never happened at all. They haven't talked about it and Quinn hasn't explicitly expressed any interest in a repeat performance, and so Santana has found both her confusion and her frustration growing in spades.

She almost wants to write it off as a one-time thing, because if Quinn wants to avoid talking about it then so does she. She doesn't want to run the risk of ruining whatever it is that they have going, because she kind of really fucking loves it.

The only problem is the butterflies are still there. And they still flock any time her skin makes slight contact with freckled, paler skin. And a smile still tugs her lips when Quinn's bright, infectious laughter invades her ears. And her heart still skips a beat any time Quinn's smile is directed towards her.

Part of Santana actually wishes they had never kissed at all, because if they hadn't, maybe she wouldn't want to do it again. If she had no idea what she was missing, maybe she wouldn't be yearning for it so incredibly. If she'd never tasted Quinn's lip gloss, maybe she wouldn't miss the hint of strawberry that lingered on her lips; the hint of strawberry that she could still faintly taste when she licked her lips hours later. Most of all, though? If they'd never kissed, maybe she wouldn't be so completely mindfucked over it all.

All Santana knows for sure is that she's fallen asleep every night to Quinn's playlist, and that every night she's dreamed of Quinn―of touching her, of kissing her, of anything and everything more―and that every morning she's woken with a smile. The past week has consisted of the first seven nights that she's slept soundly in all the years of her life that she can remember. She just wishes that her dreams would actually come to life again.

But regardless of all of that, time has carried on, as it has a habit of doing, and another week has withered away without any sort of progress towards Santana's ultimate goal of making Quinn hers. Things feel stagnant, like time is standing still, and yet Santana knows that she's running out of time. There are only two weeks left before this fantasy ends and she's thrust back into the real world, back into Lima and the reality of her life. It's really fucking balls is what it is.

It's with this realization that she decides she needs to start making her time here matter, and so she comes up with a plan.

It's just after dinner on Friday night when Sam, Santana and Quinn are sitting around their table playing a game of cards―Quinn now having at least a rudimentary knowledge of how to play poker. Quinn's head is settled on Santana's shoulder, and although part of Santana wonders if it's just so that the blonde can peek at her cards, a larger part of her doesn't really give a fuck one way or the other. She just wants Quinn to stay curled into her body forever.

She's just shuffled the deck and starts to deal out a new hand as she clears her throat lightly. "How would you guys feel about going down to the lake tonight?" she asks casually.

Quinn's head lifts along with a single brow. "Tonight _when_?"

"After lights out," she answers simply as she peeks down at her cards.

Sam's brow furrows as he looks down at his own hand, but it's more so because of the suggestion than the cards. "What about bed checks?"

Santana shakes her head lightly as she throws a pair of smuggled in wrapped candies across the table to match the blind. "There's at least an hour and a half between lights out and first cabin check."

Quinn's brow furrows to match Sam's as she tosses in a single candy herself. "How is it even possible that you know this?"

Sam shakes his head, his expression firm. "She's a damn spy," he deadpans before a grin spreads across his face.

Santana rolls her eyes before shrugging, looking at Quinn as she speaks. "You know I don't sleep. I'm awake every night when they come in, and _every night_ it's at the same time―an hour and a half after lights out."

Quinn nods in understanding, but Sam still doesn't seem entirely convinced.

He taps the table to check before speaking. "I don't know... I mean what would we even do down there?" he asks curiously.

"Don't worry," Santana smiles wide as she leans forward to lay out the flop. "I've got an idea."

* * *

><p>Santana and Quinn wait an extra fifteen minutes after lights out, until the rest of the cabin sounds mostly comatose, before they make any sort of movement. They planned ahead for their great escape, changing into outdoors-friendly clothes rather than pyjamas before climbing into bed. In reality, there are really only two potential snags to their escape: the possibility that they wake someone on their way out of the cabin, and the more remote possibility that a counsellor might be milling about outside.<p>

Once Santana's relatively sure they're in the clear, she unzips her sleeping bag, slowly and quietly, before turning towards Quinn's bunk. "_Psst_," she lets out, soft but sharp.

Quinn just clicks her tongue in response, and Santana knows they're good.

Quinn rises from her bunk and starts to tiptoe towards the door. Santana also rises but leans down towards her bag, and Quinn turns back with a bit of a panicked squeak once she reaches the door and realizes Santana hasn't followed. Santana just taps a finger against her slightly pursed lips, compelling the girl to stay quiet, as she grabs something cold and heavy from her bag and slips it into the pocket of her hoodie.

They make it out of the cabin alright, but once they're on the porch Santana pauses, holding an arm out to halt Quinn's movement as well.

"Did you hear something?" she whispers urgently.

Quinn listens to the dead air for a moment before just shaking her head. Santana takes a cautious look around at their surroundings, which are well-lit by the moonlight, and it seems as if there's no one around.

"I have to say, I'm a little more paranoid this time around..." Quinn whispers.

Santana turns towards her with a bit of a smile. "Yeah, well, we were only on the stoop last time... we weren't going off grounds."

Quinn smiles in return and Santana turns her gaze back out to the field.

"Ok, you ready?"

"Yeah."

Santana starts a bit of a jog across the open field and Quinn tails close behind. They make it about halfway across before Santana stops behind the trunk of a tree to take another look around, and Quinn stops nearly flush against her back.

When Quinn speaks, it seems as though her paranoia has fully set in. "Seriously, though, what if we get caught?" she rushes out, her voice a little shaky.

Santana doesn't turn around but does roll her eyes. "I'll take the rap. The worst they can do is send me home... then you can stay here by yourself and sing some more songs about how 'awesome' god is."

Quinn chuckles at that, but Santana quickly shushes her. She carefully surveys their surroundings before she starts to move forward once more, a little slower this time, though she's abruptly stopped by Quinn's hand grasping her own.

Santana turns around again, looking down at their hands before looking up at the blonde with an eyebrow arched, wondering what she could possibly want. Quinn just smiles softly and squeezes the hand within her own, and Santana nods with a smile of her own, wishing she didn't feel the heat that crosses her cheeks quite as intensely as she does.

They jog hand in hand and make it safely into the coverage of the forest. They work their way along the familiar path up until they reach the clearing. Sam isn't there yet, so the pair settle on their log, Quinn's head on Santana's shoulder, Santana's arm wrapped around Quinn's body.

Quinn sighs contentedly at the familiarity of it all, though she chuckles slightly (as she always does) when Santana manages to retrieve and light a cigarette with her free hand.

They sit mainly in silence, with occasional idle chatter, and Santana makes it about halfway through her cigarette before they hear rustling in the forest. The immediate assumption is that it must just be Sam, but they gradually realize, as the noise grows louder and closer, that it's not coming from along the slightly beaten down path.

"Shit," Santana breathes out abruptly, tossing her cigarette towards the water and popping off of the log to crouch behind it. She blindly grabs out at Quinn's hand, pulling her down to do the same.

While Santana totally promised to take the fall for all of this―and she really did mean it when she said it―she was also about a hundred percent sure that they wouldn't get caught. It's only now that she's considering the actual ramifications and her heart is pounding in her chest as the movement draws ever nearer.

Quinn ducks her head into Santana's shoulder and Santana wraps an arm around the small girl, though she can't help but keep a watchful eye for who or what is going to emerge from the trees. It's a few long, tense moments before a figure does emerge from the forest, and Santana's face drops completely.

"Fucking hell, feeder fish, you almost gave us a fucking heart attack!" she scolds, though perhaps she's being a bit dramatic... if for no other reason than to try to hold onto a tiny shred of her pride.

Sam laughs lightly and shrugs. "Yeah, well, it's faster _and_ more stealth to come this way―" he points back towards the forest. "Rather than cross over to your side of camp."

Santana groans lightly and Quinn chuckles against her body.

"You made me waste a perfectly fucking good cigarette, too," she says with as much venom as she can muster as she rises to her feet, brushing off the legs of her jeans.

"Yeah, well, those things'll kill you, anyway," Sam smirks.

Santana looks over with an absolute glare. "_I'll_ fucking kill _you_," she says tersely.

Quinn laughs and Sam just rolls his eyes before moving to take a seat on the log. Quinn moves back to take a seat on the makeshift bench as well.

"So..." Sam draws out curiously. "What's this great 'idea' of yours, anyway?"

Quinn looks at her in interest as well, and Santana smiles, loving the fact that she has such a rapt audience.

"Well," she lets out smugly as she reaches a hand into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie and pulls out her coup de grâce**.** "I brought a bit of a party favour."

Sam's eyes widen, though he seems more surprised than incredulous. "No way..."

Quinn's eyes are wide to match, and she definitely _is_ incredulous. "You really _are_ trying to get kicked out of here, aren't you?"

Santana smiles affectionately and rolls her eyes. "You two really _are_ fucking Brady Bunch rejects, aren't you?" she teases as she breaks the seal on the mickey of vodka between her hands. She takes a long swig, slightly grimacing and shaking her head as the burning sensation runs across her mouth and down her throat, immediately heating her insides.

She looks up with another smile before holding the bottle out, offering it to Quinn. Quinn looks entirely hesitant, though, and Santana just rolls her eyes before offering it to Sam instead.

Sam studies the bottle for a moment, then Santana, before he shrugs with a bit of a mischievous smile. "Why the hell not," he chuckles out as he takes the bottle from Santana's hand and takes a swig to himself.

Quinn looks on as he takes the drink, studying him intently. He handles it with ease, though a bit of a grimace definitely crosses his features as well, and wipes the back of his hand across his mouth before offering the bottle to Quinn once more.

"It's really not that bad."

Quinn hesitantly takes the bottle between her hands and studies it for a moment. She looks up at Santana, who just nods encouragingly, before sighing.

"Oh, whatever," she cedes before taking a small sip.

Even the tiny amount of the potent spirit causes her to cough, and Santana laughs as she reaches out to retrieve the bottle. "Now you're getting it, princess."

Sam laughs, and Quinn shoots her a bit of a red, watery glare, though it's easily betrayed by the smile tugging at her lips.

* * *

><p>It's not even twenty minutes before the contents of the bottle have been spent. Quinn doesn't drink much, rather watching as Sam and Santana down the majority of the small bottle, growing more playful and, quite honestly, more entertaining as they do.<p>

The past five minutes have consisted of the pair going shot for shot, punching each other's arms with as much force as they can muster―though Quinn gets the distinct impression that Sam's holding back. It comes Santana's turn again and she launches her fist forward, landing a heavy, square shot on Sam's shoulder.

"_Fuck_," he lets out as he winces in pain, raising one hand to his surely soon-to-be-bruised shoulder as he clamps the other one over his mouth.

Santana doubles over in laughter, pointing a lazy, accusatory finger out at him. "Ahaha, _you_ _said the 'f' word_," she ribs in a sing-songy voice.

Quinn chuckles softly, amused by it all.

Sam just rubs at his shoulder with a bit of a groan, and it's pretty clear at this point that the game is over. "What now?"

Santana's brow furrows for a moment before she lets an absolutely lascivious grin spread across her lips. "Time for a swim."

A smile spreads across Sam's face as he arches a playful eyebrow. "Without bathing suits?"

Santana's face twists in mock-thought, her slightly inebriated facial expressions being a little more emphasized. "Well, _I_ don't have anything on under here, so I guess not," she shrugs with a smirk.

They stare at each other in mutual challenge for a long moment, Quinn looking on from her perch on the log with wide eyes, before they abruptly start to strip. Quinn averts her stare with a heavy blush.

She doesn't turn her gaze back until she can hear water splashing, and she first sees the two trails of hastily discarded clothing before she looks at the lake to see Sam and Santana having a literal splash fight. She shakes her head slightly, kind of amazed at how few inhibitions the pair seem to have―though she wagers a large part of it is probably due to the alcohol that's been consumed over the past little while.

It's a long moment before Santana seems to notice that Quinn didn't follow, and Quinn knows what's coming even before the girl speaks.

"What the fuck, Fabray? Get in here!" Santana smacks her arms down against the surface of the water in emphasis.

"No way," Quinn says firm.

Sam turns his attention to the girl on the shore as well. "Come on, Quinn," he says soothingly, encouragingly. "The water's so awesome right now."

Quinn sighs as she reluctantly rises to her feet and starts towards the lake, slipping off one of her shoes as she reaches the water's edge. She dips her toe slightly into the darkness to verify what the boy is saying. The water definitely is warm, having had the sun heating it all day, and the temperature really does feel quite inviting.

She pulls her foot back and stares at the near-black surface of the water in thought. She stares so long that Santana, who has been watching the whole time, groans lightly, drawing Quinn's attention back out towards the pair.

"_Come on_, Q," she compels, slightly exasperatedly but also kindly. "It's not like we haven't both seen you in a bathing suit before..." she draws out with a soft smile, thinking that maybe part of the problem is Quinn's self-conscious nature.

Truth is they _have_ seen Quinn in a bathing suit―a one-piece, kind of tacky if you ask Santana―almost every day this summer during their swim period, and Santana can hardly imagine that the girl has anything to be ashamed of. In fact, she's got a pretty banging body by Santana's standards...

She slightly licks her lips at _that_ thought.

Quinn rolls her eyes. "_Fine_," she groans out before pulling off her sweater. She can feel two sets of eyes on her, and she looks pointedly out at the pair. "Turn around, you pervs. And no peeking," she commands firmly.

Sam chuckles lightly and Santana rolls her eyes, but they do turn around, giving Quinn the privacy she wants.

It's a few long moments, and Santana quickly grows bored as fuck, before she dips a hand down into the water and splashes it towards Sam again.

Sam looks over with a smirk and a warning shake of his head before they fall into a full-on splash fight again, laughing and launching waves of water at each other.

Santana doesn't even notice that Quinn has entered the lake until she feels a splash hit the side of her head, and she only gets a chance to glance over before she's suddenly being ambushed from two sides. She raises her arms defensively over her face as she struggles to keep the water from completely impeding her breathing.

"Alright, alright, I give!" she laughs out after a couple minutes of the assault.

It's a few moments before the splashes stop, Quinn launching an extra one for good measure, and the collective laughter starts to die down. Santana drops her arms back down and uses them to aid in her treading water as Sam leans back against the water, letting himself drift along the surface.

"You know, I feel like a million bucks right now," he lets out proudly, a slight slur having invaded his speech.

Quinn and Santana both look over with an amused chuckle at Sam's level of intoxication before he shoots upright again.

"I think I could swim across this entire lake and back," he says thoughtfully as he chances a glance over to the far bank.

Santana rolls her eyes. "Ok, frog face. I guess I should've anticipated you'd feel at home amongst your own kind."

"Hey," Sam chides, pointing out a warning finger as he floats closer once more. "My people have a vast tradition... and _you're_ just a _racist_," he teases with a smile.

Quinn laughs, and Sam launches a heavy splash at Santana before quickly swimming away in his own laughter, knowing well enough to make his escape before Santana gets a chance to retaliate.

Santana just groans and rolls her eyes as she wipes the water from her face. She turns towards Quinn, who is staring at her pensively, as they continue to tread water, now facing each other. The stare is kind of unnerving and Santana finds herself feeling suddenly uncomfortable―self-conscious, even―and she finds she can't even look at Quinn right now.

"What?" she asks softly, though she shifts her eyes towards the shore.

"We haven't talked about it," Quinn says simply, and Santana's heart starts beating a little faster. It's exactly the one thing she's wanted to avoid talking about, and yet here it is, on the forefront, and she's not even sure she's sober enough to deal with it right now. In fact, _no_, she's not sober enough to deal with it, so she decides to play dumb.

"About what?" Santana asks lamely, keeping her stare fixed elsewhere.

But Quinn waits. She fucking waits for such a painfully awkward amount of time that Santana actually starts to wonder if she somehow managed to slip off without a single sound. No such luck, though. Santana looks up and finds two hazel rings piercing deep into her own eyes.

"You know," Quinn whispers. "_It_."

Santana's heart is in her throat and she finds herself having trouble pushing words out past it. "Ok..." is what she gets out, breathily, nervously.

"What do we do about it?"

It's a simple question, really, and Santana knows exactly what she wants to do about it, but the fact that Quinn has given her no signals in any direction at all leads her to feel all the more nervous, so she deflects.

"What do you _want_ to do about it?" she asks barely above a whisper.

Quinn breaks eye contact, rather looking out towards where Sam is still swimming around. "It was wrong," she says easily, though Santana doesn't miss the fact she doesn't answer the question.

Santana rolls her eyes slightly, "Ok."

Quinn's eyes snap back to Santana's with both alarming speed and alarming intensity. "What do _you_ want to do about it?"

Santana settles a lip between her teeth, looking down at the water between their bodies. It suddenly comes to her attention that Quinn is naked beneath the dark surface, and that little realization does _nothing_ to help her thought process. Her heart is beating hard as she looks back up into Quinn's eyes, and she's so fucking afraid of saying the words she wants to say that she's not even sure she can produce sound, not that it stops her from trying.

"I want to do it again," she finally says after a few failed attempts, and it comes out as a bit of a dry wheeze, one she's not even sure Quinn heard. As soon as the words are out, though, she dips her head underwater―so much so that only her eyes are hovering above the surface.

A darkness briefly passes through Quinn's eyes before they seem to break a little, and although Santana can't hear it, she can read the blonde's lips as she says, "We can't."

Santana's heart wrenches and she squeezes her eyes shut, if only to keep herself from crying, or screaming, or embarrassing herself with some other equally weak display of emotion. She pops up above the water just long enough to take a deep breath before pushing herself completely beneath the surface, a part of her wishing that she'd just drown.

She's never felt like this before, and though part of her knew there was a distinct possibility that Quinn would react this way, she still didn't expect it. Quinn seemed to want things every bit as much as she did, to want that _kiss_ every bit as much as she did, and now, _now_? Nothing. And that's exactly what it makes Santana feel like.

She only resurfaces when she's in dire need of oxygen, and Quinn is still there, almost mockingly so, looking all sad-faced when Santana's pretty sure she's not the one who gets to be sad right now. Santana doesn't say anything, rather she looks at Quinn's ridiculously sad eyes for a prolonged moment, relatively sure her own eyes are beet red at this point, before just swimming away.

Santana swims almost half the length of the lake before she turns back, and she can see that Sam and Quinn are treading water close together. She knows it's unreasonable but the sight makes her almost feel sick, mainly because she gets it. She gets why this is 'wrong' and why they 'can't' and all that other bullshit. It's because they're both girls. If Santana was a guy, she and Quinn would be together with no questions asked, but because of her fucking biological sex, it's _wrong_.

And that's what really sounds wrong to Santana.

She swims back, if only because she knows they're pushing their luck at this point in terms of time and that they should head back soon if they want to avoid getting caught. If she can't have Quinn, she's sure as hell gonna keep her car.

"We should go," she says coolly, emotionlessly, as she approaches the pair, though she just swims right past them.

Quinn starts to swim towards the shore as well, but Sam stays still, furrowing his brow.

"Uh, guys?" he lets out starkly in realization, causing both girls to look at him curiously. "We don't have towels."

* * *

><p>Like the gentleman he thankfully is, Sam climbs out of the water and dresses his dripping wet self in his clothes before running off to his cabin to grab towels for the girls. It only takes him ten minutes to make the round trip, but it's a tense and unimaginably long ten minutes for the pair left behind.<p>

Quinn tries to speak to Santana twice, earning a simple "I don't want to talk" in response both times, perhaps a little more firm the second time around. It's the truth, really. She has nothing at all she wants to say to Quinn right now, at least nothing kind, and her mother's voice rings in her head repeatedly: _If you don't have anything nice to say..._

So she doesn't say anything at all.

When Sam does return, Santana breathes out a heavy sigh of relief. He just leaves the towels on the log and waves before taking off at a jog again, mentioning something about having seen the male counsellor on duty heading into one of the other cabins.

The girls dry off and dress themselves wordlessly. They start the walk back at a brisk pace, Quinn leading the way this time, and no one is holding hands. Santana's mind has been racing the entire time and she really wishes she could just shut it off because it's fucking exhausting. She can't get over it. She can't get over the fact that all of this time with Quinn has been for naught because she can't have the one thing she wants the most... which, frankly, is just Quinn.

Quinn's been playing into it the entire summer―the hand holds, the hugging, the touching, the kissing, and then _the kiss_. She accepted the kiss, said she wanted to do it again, and then suddenly it was 'wrong' again. She just decided it wasn't for her anymore as if it had all been on a whim. She gave Santana the one thing she's wanted all summer and then pulled it just out of her reach again. Quinn let things begin, let them grow and cultivate, let them reach a climax, and then just as easily decided that it was time for it all to end; for _them_ to end. It's fucking unfair is what it is.

And then, like someone suddenly turned on bright, blinding light, it clicks in her mind. _No_. It doesn't end like this. Quinn doesn't get to decide where it ends without consulting Santana. She doesn't get to decide that she suddenly doesn't want something she's been playing at the whole summer. Just, _no_.

Santana reaches out to grab Quinn's hand, gently, and pulls her to a stop just steps away from the open field that would lead them back to their cabin. The blonde turns around with a curious eyebrow arched. "What is it?" Her tone is gentle and soft, and Santana's betraying heart flutters at that.

Santana doesn't respond, but she places her hands on Quinn's hips, gently guiding the girl backwards until her back meets the trunk of a tree. Santana lets her hands rest on the bark on either sides of Quinn's body, her forearms pressed against the cool wetness of Quinn's top―though she can feel the heat of the blonde's body fighting through the fabric. She lets her eyes close, and at this point she's not even sure why they're here, why she's pulled them to a stop. Her skin is cold and clammy but her blood is running hot, and she can't tell for certain whether that's from the alcohol or something else entirely, but her heart is beating in her ears and she's so heavily focused on taking deep breaths to steady herself that she barely hears when Quinn speaks.

"Santana..." she whispers, more with an air of confusion than any kind of objection.

Santana's mind goes blank at the sound of her name on Quinn's lips, and her eyes slowly slide open. Quinn's eyes are sparkling an almost solid green in the bright moonlight, her matted, wet hair something akin to a pale brown, and though her skin tone reflects slightly sallow, it's by no means unattractive. Quite the opposite, in fact. Santana's not sure she's ever seen Quinn look better.

It's almost as if her hand moves by its own volition as it rises to push hair out of Quinn's eyes, brushing down along the smooth skin of her cheek before moving back down to settle on the trunk of the tree.

"What are you doing?" Quinn asks breathily, and Santana can tell that her breathing has grown a little shallow as well. Her eyes, perhaps involuntarily, flicker momentarily down to Santana's lips, and that's all it takes for Santana to make her decision.

A potentially fucking awful decision.

"_It_," she says simply. "Again."

It's the only warning she gives before closing her eyes and leaning in to kiss Quinn, gently, but firm enough to let her know that this is it. Whether this is goodbye, or a beginning, or whatever the fuck myriad other things it could be, Santana needs to let her know. It's either this or it's nothing, because Santana's not sure she can have it any other way.

Quinn immediately stiffens against the contact and Santana becomes half convinced that she's actually managed to do it, that she's managed to fuck everything up and that this'll be the last time she ever tastes Quinn's lips; but it's mere moments before Quinn's body relaxes with a sigh and her lips soften, welcoming the contact.

Santana's hands take residence on Quinn's hips and she leans in a little further, taking a plump lower lip between her own. Quinn's hands rise as she pushes off of the tree to return the embrace, and Santana can feel fingertips start to brush up and down the backs of her arms. She inhales sharply at the new sensation before moaning softly against strawberry lips, letting her teeth nibble a little at sensitive skin.

They exchange soft, slow kisses, and it's still not urgent, but it's definitely deeper than their previous embrace. Santana feels lightheaded, almost out of body, and she's half sure she's poised to faint when she feels Quinn's tongue press experimentally against the split of her lips.

Her heart thumps hard against her chest and she pulls away slightly, searching out hazel eyes. If there's one thing she _doesn't_ want to do, it's to coax Quinn into something that she doesn't one hundred percent want; something that she's going to regret in the morning.

Quinn's eyelids slowly open, and there's a sadness and a bit of questioning that Santana can read in them.

"Are you sure?" Santana asks softly.

Quinn bites her lip, and a flicker of uncertainty briefly crosses hazel before leaving just as quickly, rather replaced by striking darkness. She nods.

Santana's breath hitches and her eyes feel heavy as she leans in again. They resume gentle kisses for a few moments before Quinn's tongue makes its presence known once more, and this time Santana is more than happy to acquiesce. She lets her lips part, letting Quinn taste the inside of her lip before letting her own tongue venture out to make a new acquaintance.

When their tongues meet, they both release a long, breathy moan, and Quinn's hands slide up to lock around Santana's neck, pulling her in deeper. Santana tugs on Quinn's hips until their pelvises meet, and she relishes the hollow thud of their hipbones colliding. Their tongues slide experimentally against one another, though they almost immediately fall into a synchronized, steady rhythm; a rhythm that is only matched by the synchronized, albeit frantic, rhythm of their hearts.

Santana can taste a bit of vodka mixed with the familiar strawberry flavour, but she takes solace in the fact she knows that Quinn isn't really _drunk_. She knows that Quinn is doing this because she _wants_ it and _not_ because of the alcohol.

Their lips don't part until they are forced apart by the need for air, and even then, Santana peppers soft kisses along Quinn's lips, from one corner of her mouth to the other, placing a feather light kiss on the tip of her nose, then brushing her own nose against it, before letting her forehead drop to rest against the blonde's.

"Fuck," Santana breathes out, and it's mostly just because it's the only coherent thought she has right now.

Quinn laughs slightly at that. "Yeah."

Both pairs of eyes stay closed and their breaths are short and sharp and coming in tandem as both girls fight to restore some sort of homeostasis to their bodies.

Santana's hands squeeze at Quinn's hips and Quinn's arms tighten around Santana's neck, pulling her in for a hug, pulling their bodies flush.

"I've wanted to do that all week," Quinn says as barely a whisper, the warm breath brushing past Santana's ear causing her to shiver.

"I've wanted to do that since the day we met," Santana admits, letting her arms wrap around the blonde's slight torso.

Quinn blushes, and she's kind of happy Santana can't see it at the moment. "We shouldn't be doing this..." she draws out, though there's not even a hint of remorse in her voice, and her words are perhaps betrayed by the fact she's still holding the girl in her arms like her fucking life depended on it. "We shouldn't _want_ to do this," she amends softly.

Santana shrugs slightly, though she doesn't loosen her grip. "Fuck that."

Quinn chuckles against her shoulder, and Santana can feel it reverberate throughout her body and, _fuck_, she just wants to kiss Quinn again.

She pulls back slightly, and it's with great reluctance that Quinn lets her move. Brown eyes meet hazel again, and it's mere moments before soft skin meets soft skin once more.

The kisses are chaste and gentle and intimate and... _perfect_, really. One of Quinn's hands is tangled in Santana's hair and one of Santana's palms is pressed flat against the top of Quinn's back.

"We should go," Quinn sighs out suddenly, though she follows it up with a kiss... and another. "It's been over an hour." Another kiss.

"Yeah," Santana agrees before kissing the blonde again.

"I don't want to," Quinn whispers against Santana's lips.

"Me neither." Another kiss. "But―" she's cut off by Quinn's lips once more.

"We kind of have to," the blonde finishes, and this time she pulls away with a pronounced sigh.

Santana sighs in kind, and her eyes drift open to meet Quinn's. They're still tangled in each other and, really, the last thing she wants to do is move right now. She really can't fight the urge to lean in and capture Quinn's lips again. It's soft, and brief, but it kind of means everything to her right now.

"We should―" Quinn starts.

"Go. I know," Santana finishes with a bit of a chuckle, her forehead resting against Quinn's once more.

She runs a hand along Quinn's arm to meet the hand resting on her neck. She takes the paler hand within her own, placing a soft kiss on it before meshing their fingers together and delivering a light squeeze. Quinn smiles softly and it sends a tremor through Santana, her lips quirking up into a bit of a smile as well. She takes a step back and lightly tugs on Quinn's hand to spark her into motion. They move at a slow stroll, and Quinn pulls out of Santana's grasp, if only to lean into her side and pull an arm around her shoulders.

They re-enter the cabin silently and quickly change into dry clothes before they're left standing in front of one another in the darkness, in the small space between their bunks. Santana reaches down and takes Quinn's hands into her own once more.

"We're good?" she whispers out, feeling blindingly self-conscious as she does.

Quinn nods pronouncedly, "Yeah, we're very good."

Santana's heart flips and she leans in to kiss Quinn quickly, tenderly, before sighing against her lips as a sudden flood of relief fills her. "Good."

They don't part, they just stare at each other's eyes in the remarkable dark up until they hear a sleeping bag briefly rustle. They share one final kiss before climbing into their respective bunks and into their sleeping bags.

"Good night," Quinn whispers across the minute distance, which suddenly feels miles away.

"Good night, princess," Santana whispers in return, a painfully wide smile across her face.

As Santana drifts off into sleep, with surprising ease, the only thought on her mind is that the next two weeks no longer feel like a race, rather they feel like they're going to last forever... or, well, the only forever that _matters_, anyway.


	11. Chapter 11

The next few days pass by like an incredibly lucid dream for Santana. She and Quinn hold hands, they cuddle, they hug and touch and _everything_, just like they always have... and whenever they manage to steal a moment to themselves, they kiss. They kiss like it was the first time all over again: slow and tender, with the same nervousness and excitement and newness. What's more, every time they kiss, Santana feels like she discovers more about Quinn―like how her breath hitches when Santana's hands squeeze at her hips, how she gasps when Santana bites at her lip, how she moans when Santana's fingers lightly graze the patch of bare skin at the bottom of her spine...

For the first time in her life, Santana feels like she's found a subject she never wants to stop learning.

It's Wednesday night, and like every Wednesday night prior, the entire camp files into the chapel for the big group sing. Sam's up at the front with his guitar and the rest of the instrumentalists while Quinn and Santana are in the back row, half-heartedly singing along to the same boring songs.

Santana's holding the tattered folder of photocopied song lyrics between her hands as the group drones through another rousing rendition of 'Awesome God'. She can't help it, but she always rolls her eyes at the lyrics; and she barely supresses a laugh at the cultlike nature of everyone doing the same hand actions to go along with the words; and she _actually_ laughs at the people who are just so fucking _into_ it that they literally close their eyes and sway back and forth as they sing.

The people-watching is fun, but it's started to grow pretty old seven weeks in, and Santana finds herself feeling painfully bored. She glances over at Quinn, who is cheerily singing along, before an idea hits her and she lets a smug grin spread across her face. She slightly winds up before swinging a hip out at the blonde, lightly bumping against her side.

Quinn looks over, smiling through the lyrics, with a playful eyebrow raised. A bit of a smirk tugs at her lips as she launches her hip back at Santana with about the same vigour.

Santana chuckles softly, and the pair start to hip check each other, back and forth, gradually increasing in force, before Santana really rears back and launches almost her full weight at Quinn.

The blonde stumbles to the right, managing to fall over into the guy next to her, both of them tripping onto a chair that screeches loudly across the wooden floor. Those close enough to the scuffle to overhear it turn around with discriminating stares, and Santana just laughs like she's never laughed before. The boy looks at both of them like they're absolutely batshit insane, and that look only intensifies when he realizes that Quinn is laughing just as hard.

Quinn stands and steadies herself against the guy's shoulders, giving him a bit of an embarrassed but thankful smile before she turns back to Santana with a grin and a shake of her head. She leans in close, her lips practically brushing against Santana's ear.

"You're gonna pay for that later," she breathes out, and Santana shivers, feeling her eyes darken. As she locks eyes with Quinn, she's not sure she's ever looked forward to anything so much in her life.

* * *

><p>When the session lets out, the group is left with a good half hour of free time before lights out. The threesome settle at their table, Quinn on the bench, Sam up on the table top, and Santana standing on the grass in front of the pair.<p>

"I really don't get the hand actions to that song," Santana says plainly, digging her hands into the pocket of her hoodie.

Quinn arches an eyebrow. "What, 'Awesome God'?" Santana nods. "What's there to _get_? They're pretty simplistic."

Santana shakes her head slightly. "Well, the hand action is like it's raining," she does the action, raising her hands in front of her body and fluttering her fingertips as she lowers them, "when the lyrics are 'he _reigns_', as in rules... not _rains_ as in it's cloudy and god's coming down as pisswater."

Sam laughs, and Quinn releases a soft chuckle before she just shrugs.

"They're homonyms."

Sam's brow furrows. "I'm sorry, homma-_what_?"

Santana looks up at him pointedly. "Seriously. Do they even _teach_ English at those preppy white boy schools?"

"_Racist_," Sam coughs out, a hand raised in front of his mouth.

Santana just rolls her eyes and Quinn chuckles again before pressing on.

"Homonyms are words that sound alike even though they have different meanings. Like, there's _rain_, as in rain from the sky; _reign_, as in to rule; and _rein_, as in the rope you tie to a horse. Same goes for there, their, and they're."

Sam nods, though he still doesn't look like he completely comprehends the concept, and Santana just shrugs, pushing her hands back into her hoodie.

"Still doesn't make any sense."

A rustling comes from behind her, and all three turn their attention to see another camper passing close by. They shoot the girl a collective glare, though only Quinn seems to realize what they're doing and her brow furrows.

"Do you guys think it's weird that we don't even, like, _talk_ to anyone else?"

Santana turns back with a furrowed brow of her own. "No," she answers easily with a slight shake of her head.

Sam shrugs. "It's the force."

Santana rolls her eyes heavily and raises a hand to her forehead. "Oh my fucking god, could you even be any more of a square?"

"Ah, but you don't know the power of the force..." Sam lets out with a smug grin before slipping into an impression, knowing how much Santana _loves_ those. "_It surrounds us and penetrates us_."

He doesn't quite get the reaction he was going for, though, as Santana's eyes just widen and she breaks into absolute laughter. She leans forward towards Quinn on the bench, shoving her shoulder lightly.

"_Dude_, we're getting _gang-banged_ by the force!" she laughs out, slightly struggling to breathe.

Quinn laughs softly with a shake of her head and Sam rolls his eyes.

"Do I even have to say it?"

Santana waves a dismissive hand. "I'm amazing," she pushes out, wiping a tear from her eye as her laughter finally starts to quell.

Quinn smiles fondly at the words, and when Santana catches it, her laughter stops and her heart skips a beat. She licks her lips slightly and finds she has a hard time tearing her eyes away from the hazel ones reflecting brightly in the moonlight in front of her when Sam speaks again.

"Well, I'm gonna go shower before bed," he says simply as he pops off of the bench. "I'll see you two in the morning."

The girls wave and watch as Sam departs before it's just the two of them left there alone, Santana standing in front of Quinn, making brief eye contact with hazel once more before staring nervously down at her feet.

A bit of a knowing smile tugs the corner of Quinn's lips. "So... what do we do now?" she asks lightly, a little playful.

Santana's unable to fight a bit of a grin at the girl's tone, and she seems to find her confidence again as she looks up. "I think I have an idea..."

Quinn arches an eyebrow as her own smile spreads, and Santana just reaches a hand out for the blonde to take. Quinn's hand grasps her own, and the way their hands mould to one another, the way their fingers automatically twine, it makes Santana feel lightheaded and free and she honestly wonders how she ever functioned without this... without _Quinn_.

Santana leads them towards the blue cabin, but bypasses the front of it, rather walking around the side, through the brush and down the small hill to the back. She pulls Quinn to a stop, chancing a glance up at the cabin windows, which are well above their heads at this point, before looking back at the blonde with a gentle smile.

"So... what do you think we could do out here? You know, all by ourselves and everything..." she draws out impishly, raising her eyebrows suggestively but biting back the smirk that is tugging at her lips.

Quinn raises her free hand to her chin, looking at their surroundings in mock-thought. "Well... I don't know. There are a bunch of trees around here, we could certainly climb one and build a tree fort," she smiles, looking anything but innocent.

Santana arches an eyebrow, taking pause at the suggestion and looking up at the trees for a moment. "We could most definitely do that..." she draws out as she looks back down at the blonde, this time with a full-on grin. "But what ever would we get up to up there, all by our lonesome?"

Quinn chuckles and lightly rolls her eyes before pulling her hand out of Santana's grasp. She places her hands on either of the brunette's hips and pushes her back―with surprising force―until her back meets the wall of the cabin with a hollow thud. It's mere seconds before Quinn's body is practically flush against hers, and Santana's mouth drops agape, her eyes wide in a bit of a shock yet heavy at the actual feel. Though part of her is wondering where this aggressive version of Quinn has suddenly emerged from, the majority of her is just really fucking hoping she decides to stick around.

Quinn leans in close, ghosting her lips over Santana's teasingly but not quite leaning in close enough for the payoff. She runs hot breath up the brunette's jaw before leaning into her ear. "I told you I was going to get back at you," she husks out, and, yeah, Santana's pretty the southern hemisphere has entered the rainy season again.

She reaches her hands out to wrap them around Quinn's body, seeking anything to grab onto, but Quinn takes hold of her wrists, raising her hands to either sides of her head and pinning them against the wood of the cabin.

"Hands to yourself," she whispers with a smirk as she pulls back to look pointedly into Santana's eyes.

Santana's seriously at a loss for words at the moment, so she weakly nods, unsure there's a single coherent thought in her head right now, anyway.

Quinn holds Santana's hands in place as she leans in again, and this time she lets her lips brush ever-so-gently against Santana's before she pulls away. The feeling is electric but brief, and at the loss in contact Santana lets out a sound that can only be described as an embarrassingly needy whimper. Quinn drops her head and chuckles in amusement.

When she lifts her eyes again, she has an eyebrow raised and is wearing a disturbingly cocky grin. Santana really wants to kiss that expression right off of her lips... but she also really, _really_ wants to see where this is going.

Quinn slides their hands up further along the wall, shifting Santana's so that they're both held under one of her own. She lowers her free hand, letting it run softly along Santana's cheek before hooking it under the girl's chin, ensuring that their eyes meet. "If I let go of your hands, can I trust you to keep them to yourself?"

_No_ is the obvious thought on Santana's mind, but there's no way she's going to _say_ that to Quinn and break whatever it is that's happening here, because she's pretty fucking sure that whatever-this-is is the sexiest thing that's ever happened in her life... so she just nods again.

Quinn smiles. "Ok, then," she says simply as she lets go of the darkly tanned hands in her grasp, letting her own hand drift down along Santana's other cheek, along her throat, before dropping both hands to the brunette's slight hips.

Santana lowers her hands along the wall and clasps them tightly behind her head, honestly not sure she can trust herself to stick to Quinn's instructions.

Quinn squeezes at Santana's hips for a moment before her fingers start to drift slightly beneath the fabric of the brunette's hoodie. Santana's breath hitches when she feels the delicate skin of Quinn's fingertips brush along the waistband of her jeans, and she pushes her head back with force, tilting it slightly upwards, trapping her hands against the side of the cabin and just willing them to stay there. Every single bit of her wants to just reach out and grab Quinn, but... _no_. This is Quinn's game, and it's her rules.

Quinn's fingers tiptoe around to graze the taut skin of Santana's abs as she leans in to nip at the girl's raised chin. Santana squeaks lightly and lowers her head, but though her suddenly free hands automatically seek out Quinn's form once more, the blonde is faster. She catches Santana by her wrists again, pushing them hard against the wood siding.

Hazel eyes cut into Santana's with an intensity she's never seen before, and, really, though she's not exactly sure what coming feels like, she's pretty fucking sure she's close to doing it right now―the throbbing pressure building between her thighs starting to border on unbearable.

"Hands. To. Yourself." Quinn reiterates firmly, and Santana nods, the frantic bobbing of her head _almost_ matching the speed of her heart.

She shoves her hands into the back pockets of her jeans as Quinn leans forward and kisses her, firmly, _finally_. There's no real preamble this time around as things immediately heat, their tongues falling into a practiced rhythm―though perhaps it's a little more urgent right now with all of the buildup.

Quinn's hands start to roam again, steadily pushing the fabric of Santana's hoodie upwards, and a sudden, nagging thought starts to pull Santana back towards consciousness. Fact is, they're _outside_; outside with the mosquitoes and the horseflies and all the other creepy-crawly motherfuckers lingering around in the darkness, and exposed skin is kind of like an open buffet.

"Q," she rushes out a little frantically as she pulls her mouth away. Quinn doesn't relent, though, rather starting to trail kisses up her jawline, and Santana groans. "If I'm covered in mosquito bites after this, I'm gonna fucking ki―_uhh_." Her voice regresses into an incoherent moan as Quinn bites down on her earlobe, not hard, but with enough force to completely derail her temporary train of thought.

Quinn just licks the sensitive skin in apology before drawing back with a bit of a smirk. "On the bright side," she starts, leaning back slightly to rake her eyes down the brunette's body. "If you get covered in bites, I get to rub calamine lotion _all _over you..." she trails off, flattening her hands and sliding them smoothly up and down taut, olive skin, her thumbs brushing dangerously close to Santana's bra.

Santana's mouth goes completely dry, and, in this moment, she's not sure mosquito bites have _ever_ sounded so appealing. She's so fucking turned on that she feels like she's going to explode, and, yeah, _fuck_ keeping her hands to herself. She pulls them free from her pockets, placing them on either of Quinn's hips before spinning them both and pushing the blonde back against the cabin.

Quinn settles with a slight oomph, and though she opens her mouth to object to the sudden turn of events, she doesn't even have time to get a word out before Santana's lips are on hers, a hand gripping firm on the back of her neck.

Santana rolls her hips against Quinn's thigh, mostly by accident, but the slight friction of the action makes her release a substantial moan practically into the blonde's mouth. She mimics the action again, shifting so that she's nearly straddling the girl's thigh, and she feels an absolute tremor run through her body. Her eyes slightly widen and she pulls away, looking down their conjoined bodies, never even having considered the fact that _anything_ could feel so _good_.

She shakes her head in slight amazement, and when she looks up again, hazel eyes are looking at her curiously.

"What is it?" Quinn asks weakly, a little self-consciously, and Santana quickly realizes that the girl thinks that something's wrong. She thinks that something's fucking _wrong_ when, in actuality, Santana's not sure that anything has ever been so _right_.

"Nothing. Nothing at all," she says, giving Quinn a soft, reassuring smile before leaning in to unite their lips once more, letting one hand drift around to the small of Quinn's back, the other up to tangle in blonde hair. She waits until they've reached a comfortable pace with their kissing again before she slightly lifts her thigh between the blonde's, sliding slightly up against Quinn's core.

Quinn jumps slightly with a bit of a gasp, and she pulls her head away, looking down at the thigh settled between her own with wide eyes. "Wha-_what_?" she stammers out as she lifts confused eyes to meet the brown ones in front of her.

Santana just smiles softly with a slight shake of her head before lifting her thigh again, pressing a little more firmly against Quinn's centre. Quinn's head falls back and she releases a guttural moan, one loud enough that Santana stills, though she also chuckles slightly.

"Q," she starts out softly, trying to regain the blonde's attention, but when Quinn drops her head down her eyes are as dark as the night sky, and Santana finds herself at a loss for words again. Her breath hitches a little at the sight―the dark eyes; the slightly parted lips, plump and red and swollen from the intensity of their kissing―and her eyes darken further at the shortness of the girl's breathing.

The warning bell rings out across the campsite, indicating five minutes before lights out. It echoes around the open field, between the buildings, through the brush, and Santana faintly registers the sound, but neither she nor Quinn move, their eyes still cutting deeply into one another.

"S..." Quinn almost hisses, and the breath brushes hot against Santana's lips, sending another jolt to her centre.

Santana's eyes shut and she leans in to kiss the blonde, chaste but firm, tugging hard on her neck. Quinn's hands drift up the back of Santana's top, her fingertips settling slightly beneath the band of the girl's bra.

Santana pulls back, her forehead resting on Quinn's, her eyes remaining shut, her lungs longing for her puffer, her body yearning to touch more of Quinn.

The automatic light flicks on above them causing them both to look up with a squint, and Quinn releases a disappointed sigh. "We should go..." she trails off as she lowers her eyes to meet Santana's once more.

Santana just nods. "Yeah," she breathes out heavily before leaning in to kiss the blonde once more, letting it linger for a moment. When she pulls away, she pulls away completely, taking a step back, but Quinn doesn't let her get very far, grasping her arm and pulling her close again.

"I guess we'll just have to pick up where we left off tomorrow," she whispers with a bit of a smile, and Santana's eyes go impossibly darker.

She shakes her head slightly, trying to clear out the heavy fog hanging heavy over her cerebral cortex, before smiling. "I guess so."

They eventually make their way back up the hill, back to the cabin, Quinn's hand hooked possessively around Santana's arm, a head of blonde hair settled onto her shoulder. They share a simple 'goodnight' before climbing into their respective bunks and trying to sleep, but Santana knows it's useless. Her heart is pounding and her mind is racing and her stomach is doing backflips, and she's pretty fucking sure that Wednesday is pretty much her favourite fucking day ever.

Her heart feels full and her world feels complete and, even if it's fleeting, she can't help but think that this is how things are supposed to be. _This_ is how these things are supposed to happen. She knew something was different about Quinn straight off. She _knew_ that something was meant to happen between them. And despite the fact she never would have guessed that it would be _this_, that the bond between them would be so emotionally _and_ physically deep, she can't imagine it having played out any other way. She's riding a high that she'd never even fathomed before, and she just hopes with all that she is that things can stay this way forever...

It's not until Thursday that it all falls apart.


	12. Chapter 12

The early portion of the morning passes by just like any other morning: the group wakes, gets ready for the day, does morning prayers, and has breakfast―after which Santana and Quinn manage to steal some, ahem, quality time to themselves. It's just like it has been over the past little while, fun and playful and exciting, and it's just about everything Santana's ever dreamed of. It's not until the threesome walk into their morning lesson, Quinn and Santana arm in arm and laughing over some lame joke that Sam just told, that everything changes.

They enter the small room that has become like a second home, and there it is, written across the whiteboard like a gigantic, ten-foot wide smack in the face: 'The Sin of Sodom & Gomorrah: Homosexuality and Sexual Deviance'. It's the one topic that Santana's parents had been banking on this summer and the one that Santana has been dreading the most.

The laughter instantly fades and Santana's face drops as she looks over to Quinn, who suddenly looks deathly pale. Quinn pulls out of her grasp, and Santana's heart rate picks up to an uncomfortable pace. She swallows heavily as she watches Quinn retreat and sink into a chair, unable to fight the sudden, overwhelming knowledge that things are only going to go downhill from here.

* * *

><p>It's three hours.<p>

Three full hours of being beaten over the head with Bible verses that extol the horrors of the 'homosexual lifestyle', which, really, _what_? Genesis, Leviticus, Corinthians, Romans... all the books and verses and teachings just seem to blend together, running into one unmistakable central theme: If you're gay, you're a sinner; God hates you and you're going to hell.

Santana doesn't pay much attention to the lesson itself, though, rather keeping her focus on Quinn―Quinn, who spends the entire time with a fist clenched tightly around the cross hanging from her neck, eyes wide and sober―and she can feel the girl pulling further and further away by the moment.

By the end of the session, Quinn absolutely looks like she's going to be ill―her face having transitioned from a ghostly white to a more sickly green. Santana reaches a hesitant hand out to put it on the blonde's shoulder, but Quinn abruptly shakes it off and stands.

"I―" she falters when she looks down and meets Santana's eyes. Her lip quivers in uncertainty for a moment before she grabs hold of her cross once more and looks away. "I have to go," she says weakly, and it's all she says before exiting the room.

Santana watches her go, her heart wrenching in her chest, and Sam looks on in complete confusion.

"What's up with her?" he asks blithely, leaning back on his chair to stretch out his back.

Santana sighs heavily, though she doesn't turn towards the boy, still staring longingly at the doorway that Quinn just left through―a small, hopeful part of her expecting Quinn to walk back in with that beaming smile, laughing about how she totally got Santana with that one.

It doesn't happen, though.

She shrugs lightly. "I have no idea," she lies, and the fact that it slips out so easily makes her heart wrench even further. The beginnings of nausea start to coil in the pit of her stomach because, really, she's fucking spinning right now.

If Sam's not convinced by her words, or if he can sense what's going on, he chooses to keep it to himself. He just rises to his feet before placing a soft hand on Santana's shoulder. "Let's go get ready for lunch," he smiles.

Santana steels her eyes as best she can, looking up with what would only pass muster for a smile if she had had a recent facial stroke. She nods, zombielike. "Ok."

* * *

><p>The rest of the day passes by with a tense awkwardness between the pair that's never existed before, and this time it's blatantly on Quinn's end. She shies away from any physical contact and rarely speaks, even to Sam, rather staying lost in her own head. She barely eats at lunch, and by the time they reach their second afternoon activity―swimming―she decides to tell their counsellor she has cramps, and she heads back to the cabin by herself.<p>

The worst thing about it all is that not only does Santana feel heartbroken watching Quinn slowly slip away, but she feels an unmistakable undercurrent of guilt. Fact is, she knows that Quinn's _actually_ religious, that she buys into all this God and Jesus and sins and sinners crap, and she's known it all along. She also knows that she's steadily, single-handedly pushed Quinn further and further away from the teachings that she was brought up to believe in, and, honestly, she kind of feels like shit because of it.

She starts to think that maybe she should've left it alone. When Quinn ignored their first kiss, she should have just sleeping dogs lie. She tries to convince herself that it wouldn't have mattered, that she could have gotten past it with time... but the pain in her heart and the acid threatening to leap out of her stomach at any moment are there to let her know that it wouldn't even have been an option.

Santana stays uncharacteristically quiet all afternoon, not even bothering to lob a half-hearted jab at Sam about the shape of his abnormally large mouth, and while Sam may be blindingly naïve about a great many things, Santana knows he's not stupid. She knows that between Quinn's distance and her own behaviour, he must see that something's changed. But, whether he just feels that it's not his place to speak or whether it's for some other reason entirely, he doesn't say anything about it. He doesn't ask questions and he doesn't give Santana a hard time. He just stays with her. He makes idle conversation, and not even about the usual nerdy shit but about stuff Santana's actually interested in. He actually manages to distract Santana well enough that she doesn't pine over Quinn the entire afternoon, and for that she's eternally grateful.

It's not until dinner that Santana and Sam even _see_ Quinn again. And it's not until about halfway through the meal that Quinn actually joins in any conversation. And it's not until near the end of the meal that she shows any sort of affection, though Santana can't help but wonder if it's just purely out of habit.

A blonde head drops to rest on her shoulder, and, for the first time, the weight of it feels heavy, uncomfortable. Santana bites back the reflexive urge to wrap her arm around the blonde, but she does place a hesitant hand down on the girl's thigh beneath the table. Quinn doesn't pull away, and Santana releases a silent sigh of relief at that. Maybe they _can_ work their way back to normal, after all.

Sam watches them with a soft smile and a slight shake of his head. "You know, sometimes I wish that guys could be all touchy-feely like girls are without it being weird."

Quinn sighs, sounding slightly disinterested, not even bothering to lift her head as she speaks. "What do you mean?"

"Well," he starts, pointing his fork between the pair in indication. "You two can, like, hug and cuddle and give each other massages and stuff like that, and it's not weird because you're _girls_... but if two guys were to do that?" He laughs slightly with a shake of his head. "Yeah, it just wouldn't happen. You'd get called a '_fag_' so fast it would make your head spin."

Quinn stiffens instantly at the incendiary word, lifting her head and tightening her jaw. Santana looks at the blonde worriedly, knowing Sam may have unintentionally landed the killing blow on whatever it is that has been going on between them and whatever footing they might have regained.

Sam seems to be oblivious to what's happening across the table, though, as he presses on. "It just looks like it would be nice. Being that close to a friend, you know?" he says with a bit of a shrug before silencing himself with a forkful of potatoes.

Quinn doesn't speak at all―her body rigid, her jaw still clamped shut―she just stands and leaves wordlessly, and Santana stares after her, that fucking pain burning in her chest again.

Sam raises a curious eyebrow as he swallows his mouthful of food. "_What_ is _up_ with her today?" he lets out with an oblivious scoff.

Santana turns back towards him but looks down at her plate, rather pushing her food around with her fork. She honestly has a fair idea of 'what's up' with Quinn―shit, she's seen the shift all day―but she decides to play naïve. "I have no idea." She pauses, stilling her hand before looking up at the boy with a firm, pointed nod. "But I'm going to go find out."

She rises from her seat and starts towards the far end of the hall. She knows that Quinn couldn't have left the building, the counsellors would never allow it mid-meal, and so she knows there's only one place the blonde could have gone.

Santana enters the washroom and glances down the line of stalls, noting that only one door is closed. She softly pads over before knocking lightly on the door. "Q?"

"Go away, I'm peeing," comes the snippy response.

Santana leans against the doorframe and listens to the deafening silence for a brief moment. "No you're not."

Quinn groans lightly. "I'm trying for a number two, ok?"

Santana just chuckles fondly, albeit briefly. "No, you're not." She pushes off of the frame, rather entering the neighbouring stall. She closes the toilet lid before climbing atop it and looking over the divider. Quinn's head is settled in her hands, her posture defeated, and she almost sounds like she might be crying.

"What are we even doing?" she asks softly, not lifting her head.

Santana cracks a small smile. "Not peeing, obviously."

Quinn rolls her eyes with a bit of a groan. "You know what I mean."

Santana sighs, her smile leaving her face along with the breath that pushes out past her lips. Truth is, Santana's never really been too concerned about the whole 'defining what things are' aspect of relationships. She wasn't dating Puck when they fucked, wasn't dating Brittany when they made out, isn't dating Quinn right now and doesn't much care about putting a label on what's happening.

Quinn doesn't seem to see things the same way, though.

"We're..." she hesitates, not really knowing where she's going with it, before slightly shaking her head. "We're whatever."

"I'm not _gay_," Quinn rasps out weakly, her voice shaky at best.

Santana shrugs lightly. "Neither am I."

Quinn's head snaps up, her eyes red and weary but wide in disbelief. "You _kissed_ me!" Her tone is accusatory, surely, but it kind of comes off as if she's just said the sky is blue.

Santana's brow furrows. "...And _you_ kissed _me_. Multiple times." She shakes her head. "I'm failing to see your point here, Q."

Quinn groans and drops her head back into her hands.

Santana lowers her chin to rest on the backs of her hands atop the divider. "Look, just because we kissed a few times or whatever... that doesn't make us gay."

Quinn is rubbing her eyes furiously at this point. "But it's still wrong," she mumbles out.

Santana rolls her eyes heavily, starting to grow a little tired of the same old song and dance. "_No_, it _isn't_," she says sharply through gritted teeth, perhaps a little more sharp than she had intended.

Quinn stands abruptly at that, something resembling sheer anger across her face, and Santana slightly recoils with the way the blonde leans right into her space.

"_Yes it is_!" Quinn near-yells.

Santana's brow drops and she narrows her gaze, her mounting frustration and the newfound sensation of anger running hot through her veins threatening to overwhelm her. "Can you honestly tell me that you don't like what we're doing? That you don't _feel_ something? Because you certainly seemed to be _liking_ it when you were feeling _me_ last night."

Quinn opens her mouth to respond, but she hesitates, seemingly devoid of an answer for that one, and it's the only opening Santana needs. She reaches out and grabs Quinn firm by her neck, leaning down to press their lips together in a crushing embrace.

Quinn reflexively relaxes into the feel of it for a moment, but it's a very brief moment. She raises her hands and pushes Santana away firmly by her shoulders, nearly making the brunette lose her balance atop the toilet bowl in the process.

Quinn's eyes shift briefly, pure apology in them, but she still wipes the back of her hand across her mouth. "Whatever _this_ _is_, whatever _we are_, it's not worth going to Hell for," she says weakly, her voice slightly breaking, as she cuts Santana with a bit of a glare. Her eyes look conflicted, though, and her posture is probably not as rigid as she wishes it were. She just looks away and raises an exasperated hand to her forehead, releasing a short sigh. "Just because something feels good, doesn't make it right." She says it evenly, like it's something she's rehearsed, and Santana's slightly taken aback by the automatic nature of it.

Santana opens her mouth to say something in return―_anything_, really―but no words come out. Quinn just shakes her head slightly before she turns on her heel, unlocking the stall door and making her way out of the bathroom without so much as another word. Santana stares after her, her heart twisting, her stomach threatening to expel the food within it, and, for the first time in years, Santana thinks she might cry.

* * *

><p>If Santana thought the earlier part of the day constituted a freeze out from Quinn, well, she just had no idea what she was in for. Quinn doesn't talk to her. She doesn't talk to Sam. She doesn't even acknowledge their existence. During their evening activity, a scavenger hunt, she pairs up with one of the other girls in the group, leaving Santana with Sam. At lights out, she doesn't even cast a glance in Santana's direction, let alone say goodnight, before climbing into her bunk. And at 3am? She's fast asleep.<p>

But Santana is still awake.

Santana is still staring at Quinn, like she has been all day. Santana is still searching for answers that it doesn't look like she's going to get any time soon. Santana is still looking for the sleep that has managed to elude her for the past thirteen years of her life and that she knows isn't going to come any time soon... especially not tonight.

She cries, and she cries hard. She muffles it with her pillow, but, truth be told, she doesn't fucking care if she wakes anyone else up because she's never felt like this before and it fucking hurts. It hurts her heart, and her brain, and her stomach, and her _entire fucking being_. And for the first time in her entire fucking being, she starts to think that if this is what this 'love' thing feels like, then maybe it's just not fucking worth it.

They've got less than two weeks left―nine days, to be exact―and, at this point, Santana doesn't think the time could possibly go by fast enough.


	13. Chapter 13

It's been seven days since the meltdown, and they've been the longest seven days of Santana's life. Things have progressed (or, well, maybe _regressed_) to the point where it's as if Quinn and Santana had never met, had never bonded at all. Quinn doesn't acknowledge her existence, doesn't talk to her, doesn't eat meals with her; fuck, she's even gone so far as to trade bunks with one of the other girls in the cabin so that she doesn't have to be _near_ her. It pains Santana in a way she can't describe and a way she wishes she wouldn't have to, but she keeps a straight face to _save_ face... at least during the day.

It's only after lights out, after the cabin settles into the ambient sounds of sleep, that Santana lets it out, her pillow and her burning eyes the only ones bearing the evidence of her absolute emotional despair. The playlist that was once happy and hopeful now draws tears, and the absence of Quinn's tired murmur from the next bunk over―replaced by the buzzsaw snoring of some other random, nameless girl―cuts right through her.

Fact is, Santana's always had reason to be cocky: she's rich, she's hot, and she's popular. It's like the fucking trifecta of awesome. But now, watching Quinn gradually drift away, she's never felt so humbled. None of it means anything because none of it can help her get Quinn back, can make things go back to the way they were. And yeah, ok, Santana will admit that maybe the whole codependency thing she's had going on with Quinn the entire summer is possibly a little creepy, but that doesn't change anything. It doesn't make the hurt go away.

She's been smoking more than she'd like to admit, and more than her lungs seem to like, but it passes the time and fuck if it doesn't let her relax for at least a few minutes. She spends all the hours of the day that she's not holed up in the cabin with Sam, if for no other reason than to just not be alone. Well, maybe that's a little harsh. Fact is, she _likes_ Sam. He's a solid guy, well put together, and he's there for her... not that she takes advantage of that fact. Sam has been her rock, perhaps unknowingly so, as she's watched Quinn start to interact with the Lima Middle girls. Quinn has, apparently, found some sort of common ground with the utter bitches that Santana has spent the better part of her life hating, and it's grating to say the least.

It's just after afternoon session, before dinner, when the group ends up with a bit of free time. Santana and Sam decide to play catch in the field, just chattering away about idle things like the upcoming school year. Sam's excited to get back to his school, and, truth be told, Santana's starting to get a little excited, too. Really, right now she'd take any excuse to go back to Lima and back to her friends rather than stay out here and continue to get royally frozen out by Quinn.

Santana runs her fingers over the dotted leather of the football before settling them across the laces. She cocks her arm back and fires a tight spiral, but it travels well over Sam's head. He rushes back to try to catch it, but it impacts the grass with a light thud before bouncing on its end and rolling over towards a group of girls settled on a blanket.

Sam hustles over to retrieve the ball, exchanging a shy smile with one particular red-headed girl before heading back towards Santana. The girl watches longingly as Sam jogs away, and Santana cracks a bit of a smile at the sight.

She tips her chin up slightly as the boy approaches. "Who's the girl?"

Sam's brow furrows as he tosses the ball. "Who?"

Santana catches the ball between her hands and shakes her head. "Little redhead you've been eyefucking the past couple weeks."

Sam huffs a laugh. "She's no one. Just a girl."

Santana laughs lightly as she throws the ball back. "She's cute. And she's _obviously_ into you."

Sam jumps to catch the toss before stilling the ball between his hands for a thoughtful moment, looking over with an eyebrow raised. "You think?"

Santana nods, "Yeah. She watches you when you're not looking. I'm pretty sure she either wants to jump your bones or harvest your organs."

Sam laughs lightly at that. "Yeah, yeah..." he chuckles as he fires the ball back. "I think you might be the last person I'd turn to for girl advice right now, though."

Santana's brow furrows as she looks up. "What? Why?"

Sam stares at her pointedly, his head tilting slightly to the side. "I'm not blind, you know."

Santana rolls her eyes and tosses the ball. "I don't even know what the fuck you're on about."

Sam arches an eyebrow, settling the ball into one of his hands as he starts to walk over. "You and Quinn?" he says softly as he approaches, and he doesn't miss the way Santana's eyes briefly widen. "Yeah," he chuckles. "I think you two are more than meets the eye."

Santana's brow drops. "So, what, we're fucking _Transformers_ now?"

Sam's just a foot away now, and he drops his head down, shaking it with a laugh before looking up with soft, green eyes. "I'm serious, Santana. If you need someone to talk to... I'm here," he shrugs lightly, looking nothing if not sincere.

Santana scoffs. "Thanks, but I don't need a human diary, _shark bait_."

Sam arches a teasing eyebrow, handing the football to Santana as he moves to settle atop the picnic bench. "Seriously? Quoting movies? Now you're just getting lazy."

Santana laughs in disbelief as she climbs to sit up on the table next to him, arching a critical eyebrow. "This from the guy who spouts Star Wars quotes like it's his fucking religion?"

Sam grins. "Ah, but, _it's against my programming to impersonate a deity._"

Santana rolls her eyes with a bit of a groan. "Do you just flap your lips for better air intake, or...?"

Now Sam rolls his eyes, though he releases a soft chuckle, bumping his shoulder against Santana's lightly. "Let's just call it an evolutionary advantage," he smirks before throwing an arm over the brunette's shoulders and pulling her into a bit of a headlock.

Santana laughs―she really _laughs, _for the first time in _days―_as she struggles to escape, poking her fingers out at Sam's side. After a few moments of playful struggle Sam relents, and Santana slaps his shoulder lightly with a wide smile across her face. Fact is, if she and Quinn are done for good, if these seven weeks of cultivating a friendship have been a complete waste, then at least she knows she's still got Sam.

And maybe that's all the comfort she needs.

* * *

><p>It's not long before the dinner bell rings and the camp herds towards the dining hall. Sam and Santana collect their food from the buffet-style servery before they take their usual seats near the back of the hall. When they settle in, Quinn is already sitting with her new 'friends' just a few tables down, and, as much as Santana doesn't want to, she finds herself staring at Quinn over Sam's shoulder.<p>

Truthfully, she doesn't _want_ to notice Quinn, doesn't _want_ to watch the girl like it was her motherfucking job, doesn't _want_ to pine over a girl that doesn't seem to want a single thing to do with her; but, like so many other things in her life, it seems as though she doesn't really get a say in the matter.

What she _does_ notice is how Quinn's hair is pinned back, (Santana really prefers when it's loose and flowing,) how she's terribly overdressed given the temperature, (Santana's pretty sure she must be sweating under that white cardigan... and _that_ thought makes her lick her lips slightly,) and, most disturbingly of all, how her smile is missing something. It's all teeth and no emotion, Santana thinks, and she honestly wonders when that changed.

While a silent meal hasn't really been uncharacteristic between the pair over the past week, Sam seems to notice that Santana's attention is elsewhere, and that her expression reads nowhere _near_ happy, so he clears his throat lightly.

"So, I've been really into the Whedonverse lately," he says casually before taking another bite of his burger.

Santana shakes her head free of her thoughts before turning her focus to the boy in front of her, perking up slightly as she arches an eyebrow. "You mean, like, Buffy and shit?"

Sam nods, "Yeah. Buffy, Angel, Firefly, _everything_. I mean, the guy's a freaking genius. The comedic timing in all of it is just perfect."

Santana shrugs lightly. "I guess. I mean, I was into Buffy when it was on..." she trails off, trying to downplay it as she takes a bite of her food. Truth is, after the Harry Potter experience, she's not so sure she wants to mention the fact that disc 6 of season 4 is currently safely nestled in her DVD player at home.

Sam must have seen the shift in her demeanour, though, as he raises a curious eyebrow. "Got a favourite episode?"

Santana nods as she swallows another bite. "Yeah, the dream one."

"_Restless_," Sam corrects with a bit of a smile.

Santana nods again, "Yeah. The cheese guy is fucking hilarious... I mean, _I wear the cheese_―"

"_It does not wear me_," they voice in unison, and Sam laughs with wide eyes and a slightly amazed shake of his head.

He points his fork out towards her. "Keep talking like _that_, and I'm gonna start being attracted to you."

Santana huffs a laugh and rolls her eyes. "_Please_, start? I'm fucking hot shit and you know it," she lets out with a cocky wink.

Sam rolls his eyes and just smiles, and Santana smiles, too, as she looks him over, loving the fact that, no matter what, he's still her boy. No matter what type of shit goes down between herself and Quinn, things with Sam don't change. They can still banter back and forth and Santana can still make fun of his comically oversized mouth and his overwhelming nerdiness, and it's still all good.

She grows slightly thoughtful as she continues to stare at the boy, wondering if he would have been a better candidate for a summer love―after all, she wouldn't have had to see him after Saturday, wouldn't have had to deal with any potential fallout... but her brow quickly furrows, her face twisting as she truly considers the idea. Thinking about it now, it all sounds a bit too incestuous―like fucking around with her own brother or something―to be at all appealing.

Santana shakes her head slightly, and with the jolt to reality she realizes that she must have been silent for a long while since Sam is staring at her curiously. She shifts in her seat, suddenly feeling a bit self-conscious. "What?"

Sam just shakes his head with a soft smile, "Nothing." He chews another bite of his food before launching back into conversation. "So, Joss has that new show 'Dollhouse' coming out this winter..."

Santana nods. "Yeah, I saw the commercial for it. It actually looks pretty interesting... not to mention, Eliza Dushku is fucking _hot_," she footnotes, though her face instantly reddens as she realizes she said it aloud.

Sam almost laughs out his food before he manages to swallow it down, looking over with wide eyes and a bit of a grin. "Well, I won't argue _that_."

Santana just stares down at her plate in utter embarrassment, her cheeks burning hot, but Sam comes to her rescue.

"It has Helo from BSG in it, too."

Santana looks up, her brow furrowed in confusion. "Ok, now you lost me."

Sam chuckles. "Battlestar Galactica."

Santana just nods in understanding, and she takes to eating her food as Sam starts to prattle on about the significance of the show and its meaning and all sorts of shit that Santana doesn't care about and honestly tunes out for a good portion of.

Sam's still carrying on when a noise cuts straight through Santana's consciousness, drawing her attention back across the hall: Quinn's laugh. It's surprising how deeply it cuts to her core, and how quickly it restores the throbbing ache in her chest. Hearing Quinn laugh with someone who isn't her, seeing Quinn _smile_ for someone else, makes her feel almost physically ill, because as much as she wants more than anything in this world for Quinn to be happy, she wanted Quinn to be happy _with her_.

Quinn's eyes absently drift over to Santana's and they lock for a brief moment. Santana smiles softly, sombrely, but Quinn just steels her expression and turns her attention back to her table. Santana sighs and hunches slightly over in her chair, taking to pushing the mac 'n cheese on her plate around with her fork. Fact is, as much as she'd like to be over Quinn, as much as she'd just like to forget that anything ever happened, she's pretty sure that the Quinn-shaped hole in her heart is one that's never going to heal.

And it fucking sucks.


	14. Chapter 14

It's Friday. It's the last full day of camp. The day is scheduled to be filled with little games and quizzes to make sure the summer's lessons are really driven home, and the night is slated to hold the final bonfire and a talent show to dole out the last few points to whichever colour teams come out on top. It seems pointless to Santana, really, because it's not like there's any prize for the winning team beyond a bit of an ego boost... then again, that doesn't really sound all that bad right now.

And tomorrow? Tomorrow the buses will be re-loaded with luggage and campers and will make the two hour journey back to Lima. Tomorrow everything―all the emotions, all the laughs, all the _feelings―_will be packed and shipped away as if the past two months had never happened at all. (And, if Santana's honest, a part of her wonders if she'd be better off if the past two months _had_ never happened at all.)

Fact is, Quinn's new group of friends is every bit as bitchy as Santana remembers them, and it's been a daily reminder of why she's never wanted anything to do with them. Their little snide comments and pointed laughs have really started to grate on Santana, and she's pretty sure she's approaching the point of snapping. She hasn't been in a fight since the sixth grade―when she punched the living fuck out of Noah Puckerman for grabbing her ass―but she's not at all above going there if the situation calls for it. For as much as she likes Quinn, even _loves_ Quinn, it doesn't give the girl and her newfound friends a free pass to treat Santana like complete shit. If there's one, singular thing Santana has vowed to maintain through all of this, it's her fucking pride. And, yeah, even though Quinn herself hasn't specifically made any comments towards her, she's still walking a pretty fucking fine line.

It's just after lunch when the blue girls make their way back to their cabin to get ready for afternoon session. Quinn and her cronies are walking ahead of Santana as she begrudgingly follows close behind. She can hear their conversation, and it honestly starts to tug at her last nerve.

"I mean, I don't even know why you were hanging out with her," one brunette says, shooting a pointed glare over her shoulder and back at Santana.

Santana smiles mockingly and flips the bird in response.

"Yeah, you're _so_ much better than her," another adds with a derisive scoff.

Quinn stays relatively silent, though she nods.

"Just look at it this way," the third one, a blonde, chimes in. "Now you've got us and you can make up for the time you spent with, well, the less _desirable_ element around here."

The three girls laugh and Quinn releases a bit of a humoured chuckle as well, and as simple as the action is―just a poor excuse for a laugh―it's the final straw for Santana.

Quinn is lagging behind the other three as they turn the corner towards their cabin, and Santana takes her chance. She jogs a few paces to catch up before grabbing Quinn's forearm firmly and tugging her backwards. Quinn tries to yank her arm away, but Santana holds strong, pulling Quinn along behind her―down the hill, through the brush, and to the back of the cabin.

She uses the momentum she has from tugging Quinn to push her into the clearing.

Quinn almost stumbles as she tries to still her momentum and regain her balance. "What the hell, Santana?" she objects, turning to face the girl at her back as she raises a hand to rub along the arm that Santana was just manhandling.

Santana can see the red marks on Quinn's pale skin, and she knows they may well turn into bruises, but right now her frustration is overriding the guilt tugging at her heart.

"What the _fuck_ is your problem, Q?" She says it with what she wishes was anger, but comes off more as unmitigated longing.

Quinn looks away, breathing out a long, unsteady sigh. "I don't hang out with _fags_."

Santana clenches her jaw in anger and lets out a contemptuous laugh. "You know, you shouldn't call Sam that."

Quinn doesn't raise her hand fast enough to stifle the small laugh that pushes out through her lips, and the familiar sound makes Santana smile a little. She steps forward, emboldened, running gentle fingers along Quinn's pale, possibly-bruised forearm.

"Don't touch me," Quinn nearly whispers out, her eyes conflicted, her voice longing for objection but sounding more defeated.

Santana grows even bolder with Quinn's lack of vigour, stepping in further, letting her hand drift up Quinn's arm to her neck, letting the other grab hold of the girl's hip.

Quinn's eyes grow cold, vacant at the contact, and she pushes Santana away almost violently. "I said _don't fucking touch me._" This time her voice is filled with malice, her face stern, as she crosses her arms in front of her body. Her stare is piercing, though she abruptly looks away, breathing out a short sigh. "I don't think I'm gonna be ok with this 'friends' thing anymore."

Santana's eyes flash red and she grabs Quinn's arm firmly again, bringing hazel eyes back to meet her own. "I don't get what your problem is. What, because of what some fucking _book_ says, we can't be together?"

Quinn scoffs and rolls her eyes away again. "That '_book_' is the word of God, Santana," she lets out, a distinctly condescending tone to her voice.

Santana's brow furrows. "God didn't write a fucking book, Q, some old dudes in creepy-ass cloaks in a fucking cave somewhere did."

Quinn pulls her arm free once more, huffing a cynical laugh. "You know, I'm starting to think you don't really _get_ this whole Christianity thing."

"I'm starting to think that _you're_ the one who doesn't fucking get it!" Santana nearly yells, incredulous, and Quinn slightly recoils at that. "You know that 'Jesus' dude we're always talking about? Yeah, he didn't walk around telling gay people that they're gonna burn in hell for all eternity."

Something flashes across Quinn's eyes as she looks back to Santana, and she leans in close, her nose nearly brushing against Santana's own. "I am _not_ gay," she says firmly through gritted teeth.

Despite the acerbity of her voice, Santana's eyes instinctively drift down to Quinn's mouth at the lack of distance between them, and with the way the blonde's lower lip is quivering, Santana quirks an eyebrow. She takes a step back and crosses her arms in front of her body with a wry smile and a slight shake of her head, suddenly feeling quite smug about the whole situation. "Ok, Fab-_gay_," she almost laughs out, tipping her chin up towards the cabin. "Go on back to your heterosexual, bitch friends, and pray to your heterosexual god, and maybe you'll feel better about your little, _heterosexual_ self."

Quinn's eyes are absolutely on fire as she reflexively raises a hand, and Santana actually winces, about half convinced that Quinn's about to hit her. At the slight flinch, though, Quinn's eyes widen in realization and she drops her hand over her mouth, her posture completely collapsing. She shoots an expression that looks almost apologetic towards Santana before she simply turns to leave.

She only makes it a few steps before she pauses, turning her head halfway back to speak. "If you think this is easy for me, you're wrong. I never wanted it to turn out like this," she breathes out, and it just sounds so broken and tired that Santana's posture weakens, too.

She watches as Quinn departs up the hill, her heart twisting in her chest, but despite the absolute clusterfuck of emotions running through her, Quinn's words managed to spark something―something that's burning deep within her and threatening to well up to the surface; something that's been missing this past week; something that almost feels like... _hope_? Quinn may not have left an open door, but she certainly cracked a window... and if growing up in Lima Heights Adjacent with Puck as a best friend has taught Santana _anything_, it's how to break in through an open window.

Santana raises a had to her forehead, trying to anchor her spinning head. Despite the fact that session is starting, she can't even fathom the idea of being subjected to any more of this place's special breed of 'Christianity' at the moment. She checks her pockets to see whether she has everything she needs before she just takes off, heading straight towards the lake. Any other day she'd suck it up and go to afternoon activities, but, really, it's the last fucking day of camp; what are they gonna do, send her home a day early?

She makes the walk out and settles onto the log and back into her head. She runs through the same events and the same scenarios over and over in her mind, wondering what she could have said, what she could have done differently to change the way things have gone. It's fucking exhausting. She makes it through two cigarettes worth of thought and is just about to light her third as she hears footsteps rustling through the forest. Frankly, she doesn't care who it is, so she just raises the cigarette to her lips and lights it as if she doesn't have a care in the world.

A figure emerges, and Santana can see out of the corner of her eye that it takes a spot standing at the end of the log, staring out across the water. Santana's own eyes are fixed on the water's surface as she takes a deep drag, letting the smoke plume around her as she slowly breathes it out.

"This is our spot, you know," she says wistfully.

Sam nods, knowing that Santana certainly isn't including him in that sentiment. He moves slowly and quietly as he takes a seat next to the morose girl, waiting for her to speak again.

Santana stares down at the cigarette in her hand for a few silent moments as Sam settles next to her, rolling the filter idly between her thumb and forefinger. "I miss her," she says softly, and her betraying voice almost breaks halfway through it.

Sam nods again. "Me, too," he replies, with equal softness, before chancing a glance over at Santana, trying to read her posture. "I never thought I'd make actual _friends_ out here, you know?"

Santana just nods knowingly, sullenly, the sudden realization that she really only made _one_ friend here hitting her like a freight train. She takes another drag of her smoke.

Sam opens his mouth slightly to speak, but falters, and Santana rolls her eyes as she exhales.

"Out with it, grouper mouth."

He hesitates again before speaking softly, softer than Santana's heard him speak before. "The force is strong between you two."

Santana rolls her eyes harder than she's sure she's ever rolled them before because, really, as if there could even _be_ a more inopportune time for Sam's particular brand of nerd. "Can you please cut the fucking Star Wars bullshit and just _talk_ to me?" she lets out exasperatedly, running her free hand roughly through her hair.

Sam shrugs. "That's not a quote. I meant what I said. There's something between you two, some magnetic force that keeps trying to pull you together. I can see it. Quinn may be trying to act all hard, but... I can see she misses you, too," he offers earnestly, his eyes disarmingly soft.

Santana swallows hard before meeting his eyes, an eyebrow raised, feeling surprisingly self-conscious. "And you don't think there's anything _wrong_ with that? With... _the two of us_..." she trails off nervously, not really sure how to word it, her eyes flitting back down to the stream of smoke rising from the end of her cigarette.

Sam shrugs again. "Something that obvious? I don't think God or anyone else would put you two through all of this if He didn't want it to work."

Santana smiles and Sam just shakes his head lightly with a smile of his own.

"Why do you think I kept trying to find excuses to leave you two alone?"

Santana chuckles slightly at the admission. "You know, I was wondering about that... I mean, you 'shower' more than anyone I've ever met. Of course, at first I just chalked it up to you being a fucking fish and all, but..." she trails off teasingly.

Sam rolls his eyes and bumps his shoulder lightly against Santana's. The slight laughter slowly dissipates and a silence settles in, both pairs of eyes drifting across the surprisingly calm surface of the lake. It's a few long moments before Sam speaks.

"There's nothing _wrong_ with you liking Quinn, Santana." He pauses for a beat before his eyes widen, and he almost laughs out the words, "You're just gay for Fabray!"

Santana rolls her eyes hard and punches Sam's shoulder with equal force, though she can't quite fight the laughter that cuts through her own speech. "Will you just shut your unnaturally large mouth?" She's smiling wide now, though, and she shakes her head in slight amazement before leaning in to kiss the boy on the cheek. "You're kind of awesome sometimes, you know that?"

Sam just smiles wide and wiggles his eyebrows a few times. "_You're all clear, kid! Now let's blow this thing and go home_!"

Santana purses her lips and raises an unimpressed eyebrow. "Star Wars?" she hazards.

Sam just nods, and Santana shakes her head with a bit of a scoff.

"You know, you are single-handedly making me hate a movie I've never seen."

Sam cracks a satisfied grin before bumping Santana's shoulder lightly with his own. "Nope, I'm making you hate _six_ movies you've never seen."

Santana rolls her eyes with a bit of a laugh.

Sam just smiles and playfully shoves Santana's shoulder once more before the pair settle into a bit of a silence. Santana finishes off her smoke, taking one final drag before tossing it to the water's edge, watching as it rolls along the grass and hisses when it finally meets the water.

After a few long moments, Sam starts humming idly, some tune that Santana vaguely recognizes. She listens to the deep timbre of Sam's voice for a while before her eyes widen and her jaw drops, sudden realization catching her completely off-guard. She flails her arms out excitedly in front of her body, and Sam instantly grows silent, looking over at Santana as if she's just completely cracked.

"Something tells me you have a plan..." he draws out warily.

Santana nods, looking over to the boy with an uncharacteristically wide smile and amazingly bright eyes as she digs a hand into her pocket. "Fuck yeah, I do."


	15. Chapter 15

The pair head to afternoon session shortly after that―not even half an hour late―and they barely get a slap on the wrist for their troubles. Santana manages to sweet talk a highly reluctant Sam into begrudgingly skipping their second afternoon activity so that they can work out the details of her plan, and by the time they finish, she feels surprisingly confident and self-assured. It's a pleasant feeling, really, and it's one she rides all the way through dinner... but as the sun starts to set and the time to actually put the plan into motion draws nearer, her confidence gradually fades, rather replaced by overwhelming nervousness.

Fact is, it's the last night. It's the last stretch of time that Santana has to try to fix things without the distraction of Lima and everything that comes along with being back home. Tonight is her best―possibly _only―_chance of getting Quinn back, and it's honestly daunting.

The evening passes by surprisingly quickly, though, and before Santana even knows what's happened, the group is already gathered in a semi-circle around the roaring bonfire, the other side kept clear as a sort of stage, as the talent show gets underway.

Quinn and her friends are settled in the front row while Santana and Sam are closer to the back of the group. Santana grips hard at her denim-wrapped thighs as she sits through the various skits, musical numbers, and other shows of skill that the other campers have prepared, unable to even muster a congenial show of applause for their efforts.

It's a cold night, but her body is running hot―her palms sweating, her heart racing, her breaths coming short and sharp―because she knows that every single minute that passes by is one less minute before―

"Ok!" Colleen announces, clapping for the previous act as she returns to centre stage. "Up next we have a last minute addition. From the blue team: Santana and Samuel!"

Quinn's eyes widen and she turns away from the fire, looking directly back at where Santana is seated, a mixture of confusion and not-so-hidden interest playing across her features. Santana's breath stills when hazel eyes meet her own because, really, it's been far too long since she's seen that stare. She doesn't move for a long while, doesn't even notice how much time has passed, until she feels Sam tug her arm.

"Come on," he says softly, albeit a bit urgently, finally tearing her eyes away from Quinn's. "Just three minutes and it'll be over with."

Santana nods and rises to her feet, almost robotic, and Sam guides her to centre stage. He retrieves his guitar from a nearby picnic table as Santana takes to staring at the fire, wringing her hands together roughly, nervously, in front of her body. Truth is, as much as Santana _loves_ being the centre of attention generally speaking, this is quite a bit different... and the overwhelming vulnerability she feels standing in front of these hundred people, about to completely bare her heart and soul, is enough to make her start to slightly panic.

Sam pokes her side with the neck of his guitar and it manages to at least momentarily spring her into action. She raises her eyes from the burning flame to the large group in front of her and clears her throat lightly.

"Ok," she lets out as a bit of an uneasy squeak. "Uh, yeah, so I'm not really good with the whole... _talking_ thing..." She runs a hand roughly through her hair as she breathes out a long, unsteady breath. "So... I'm gonna sing a song, and Sam here's gonna play the guitar... and, uh... yeah." She wrenches her eyes shut for a moment, her breathing completely off-kilter, because, yeah, in her personal hall of lame, she's pretty sure that intro was number one with a bullet.

She turns away from the group, frantically digging into the pocket of her hoodie to retrieve her puffer and take a deep shot from it. She takes a few long, deep breaths, letting the cool mist calm her lungs, before she lets her eyes open again and they fall directly onto Sam. The boy is wearing a soft, reassuring smile, and he nods lightly as he mouths, "You can do this." Santana nods in return, her confidence suddenly renewed, and she turns out to the group with a smile.

Her eyes automatically seek out the hazel ones just across the flame, which are wide in wonderment, and maybe even a little skepticism, but they immediately shift as Sam starts to strum the opening riffs. Quinn's eyes seem to well up with emotion as she raises a hand over her mouth, and Santana immediately knows that―regardless of the fact that it's being played on guitar rather than piano―Quinn recognizes the song.

Santana suddenly feels ready―readier than she did even earlier in the day―and she takes a deep breath, her stare unwavering, as she starts to sing.

"_When the rain is blowing in your face  
>And the whole world is on your case<br>I could offer you a warm embrace  
>To make you feel my love."<em>

Her voice is weak and raspy through the first part of the verse, and she finds herself swallowing to lubricate her startlingly dry mouth. She had really never expected to have such a visceral reaction to just _singing_, but she presses on.

"_When the evening shadows and the stars appear  
>And there is no one there to dry your tears<br>I could hold you for a million years  
>To make you feel my love."<em>

Quinn breaks eye contact for the first time, looking down at the fire in front of her, but Santana doesn't falter, doesn't flinch, she just continues to stare at Quinn as she carries on.

"_I know you haven't made your mind up yet  
>But I would never do you wrong<br>I've known it from the moment that we met  
>No doubt in my mind where you belong.<em>

"_I'd go hungry, I'd go black and blue  
>I'd go crawling down the avenue<br>No, there's nothing that I wouldn't do  
>To make you feel my love."<em>

Sam plays through a bit of a guitar solo, and, without lyrics to distract her, Santana starts to shift her stare nervously around, balling her fists in the hem of her hoodie. Quinn's eyes had been kind of functioning as her anchor, giving her something to focus on, but staring at the top of her head isn't nearly as effective.

As she glances around the group, she can see that some couples have cuddled close together―hands holding hands, heads resting on shoulders―and, despite her nerves, she remembers exactly why she's doing this; why she's putting herself on the line―something she's never been very fond of doing. As far as romantic gestures go this is pretty much her peak, and all she can do is hope that Quinn will know, will _understand_, just how much it means.

"_The storms are raging on the rolling sea  
>And on the highway of regret<br>Though winds of change are blowing wild and free  
>You ain't seen nothing like me yet."<em>

Santana shifts her stare back to Quinn, and their eyes meet again. Quinn's eyes are wide and watery, glistening against the gentle glow of the fire, and all Santana can do is smile softly, the words coming out of her mouth being perhaps the truest ones she has ever expressed.

"_I could make you happy, make your dreams come true  
>Nothing that I wouldn't do<br>Go to the ends of the Earth for you  
>To make you feel my love<em>

"_To make you feel my love."_

Sam strums the final chord and the group gives a warm round of applause, though it's dull against Santana's ears. Her eyes are still fixed on Quinn's, though the blonde quickly looks away as she wipes furiously at the tears that have dared to leak out. Quinn silently rises from her seat on the grass and rushes off, and Santana stares after her in a mix of confusion and longing. With the adrenaline running through her body from singing and the hard beating of her heart ringing in her ears, she barely even registers when Sam wraps her up in a congratulatory hug―that is, up until he speaks.

"I did my bit, now you go get your girl," he offers softly before pulling away, letting his hands linger on Santana's shoulders so that he can give them a reassuring squeeze.

Santana looks at him with a broad smile and a slight shake of her head, unsure she's ever been this thankful for anyone in her life, and Sam just nods lightly and pushes her by the shoulder. Santana can't help but chuckle as she turns away, and an unexpected level of excitement starts to run through her as she starts off at a jog.

Santana heads back to the cabin to search for her girl, and it's only when she finds it empty that she almost laughs at her own stupidity. Fact is, if Quinn really wanted to get away from the group, really wanted to have some time to herself to think, there's only one place she would go.

Santana makes the walk out at a brisk pace―not willing to give herself enough time to reconsider and let her nerves get the better of her―and when she arrives at the mouth of the lake, she finds Quinn sitting on the log, her knees pulled up to her chest, her head buried in her hands. Santana moves slowly, gently padding across the slightly damp grass before settling next to the blonde, leaving about a foot of space between their bodies. (The last thing she wants to do is make Quinn feel pressured in any way.)

Santana takes to staring out across the lake as they sit in silence for a long while, Quinn sniffling intermittently, and part of Santana starts to wonder if Quinn even realizes she's there...

"I've never had anyone sing to me."

Yup. She definitely knows.

Santana chuckles lightly, shaking her head in slight amazement at her own actions. "I've never sung to anyone before," she lets out honestly.

Quinn sniffs hard and wipes at her eyes, though she still doesn't look over. "Did you mean it?"

Now Santana's confused. "Mean what?"

Quinn lifts her head, her eyes terribly red, the telltale streaks of salt trailing down her cheeks, and Santana's not sure she's ever seen her look so tiny.

"Do you love me?" she asks meekly.

Santana's eyes widen, her heart suddenly beating quite hard in her chest, and she swallows thickly. "I don't know," she answers truthfully, thinking it over for a moment, "but... I _think_ so."

Quinn nods in mild comprehension. "Why?" she asks, barely above a whisper, hazel eyes burning deep into Santana's own, just searching for answers.

Santana looks out down at her hand which is gripping hard at the log now, fingers tracing along the rough texture of the bark, Quinn's questioning stare on top of the current topic of conversation being just a bit too much. She breathes out a long, steadying breath, rolling the question around in her mind, before she speaks from the heart.

"Because I'm happy when I'm with you... like, _really_ fucking happy. And I'm miserable when you're not around." She almost rolls her eyes at her own words. "And I know this all sounds really stupid and fucking cliché, but―" she pauses, lifting her eyes to meet the hazel ones in front of her again. "I don't think my heart would be beating this hard if I _didn't_."

A small smile creeps across Quinn's lips at the words, and she shifts, turning her body to face Santana a little better. "Mine, too." She reaches a shaky hand up to Santana's cheek, stroking it along smooth skin, just staring into deep brown eyes, re-familiarizing herself with the girl in front of her.

After a few long, silent moments spent studying each other, Quinn licks her lips slightly. Her eyes drift down to Santana's mouth briefly before her eyelids drift closed and she leans in, slowly―somewhat tentatively―pressing their lips together.

Santana exhales heavily through her nostrils at the feeling―the feeling she's missed so fucking much―and she throws a leg over the log so she can face Quinn, though she doesn't break contact. She slides closer, pulling Quinn's legs so that they're draped over her own. She lets a hand rise to Quinn's neck, the other staying settled on her thigh, massaging lightly, and Quinn's free hand rises to cradle Santana's chin. The kiss is chaste and gentle, but Santana melts at the contact, because fuck if she hasn't missed the taste of Quinn's lips, the smell of Quinn's conditioner, the feel of soft, pale skin pressed against her own.

The embrace is at once incredibly long and yet all too short, and when they part, Santana's nerves flare up again. Her eyes meet Quinn's with a bit of uncertainty, and the blonde notices.

"What is it?" she asks softly, her voice laced with a level of concern that makes warmth flood through Santana's heart.

Santana's brow furrows slightly, a series of conflicting thoughts running through her, but she finds she has to ask; has to make sure that this isn't just something that Quinn's going to write off again in the morning.

"What about God?" she lets out quietly, timidly, terrified that she's ruining everything just by opening her mouth. But she presses on. "I mean, if you're..." she trails off, hesitant to even say the word. "_Gay_," she finally pushes out, "then you won't get into Heaven."

Quinn just shakes her head with a soft smile, one that makes Santana's heart flutter. "And who's to say I'm not already there?"

Santana smiles impossibly wide at that, and with the pleasant heat that coils in her stomach, radiating out to her extremities, she finds that she's suddenly not so nervous anymore. She leans in, quickly reuniting their lips, and they exchange slow, soft, _intimate_ kisses for a few long moments before Santana runs her tongue over Quinn's lower lip with need. Quinn moans softly, and Santana takes the invitation.

Their tongues reacquaint somewhat hesitantly before falling into a rhythm that's just so familiar. The kissing is slow, languid, and, above all, passionate. Santana's hands start to drift further, one tangling in blonde hair as the other starts to press against Quinn's hip, trying to gently coax her into lying down across the log.

Quinn's own hands are hooked around Santana's neck, and she acquiesces as she slowly lies back, guiding Santana down with her. It's an awkward position, and not entirely comfortable, but their positioning seems to mean little as their kisses deepen and heat, and cold hands start to seek out more warm flesh.

Santana's hands run under Quinn's sweater to the heated skin of her abs, and she relishes the way the muscles contract under her touch. Quinn's hands play along the skin of Santana's hips before drifting around to her back and starting to tug up, almost frantically, on the hem of her hoodie. Santana lifts her body slightly and raises her arms over her head to aid in its removal, but it gets caught around her neck. Quinn keeps tugging, aching to restore lip contact between them, and with a final, hard tug she manages to remove the hoodie but also tug them right off of the log.

They fall onto the dewy grass on their sides with a light thud, both giggling a little at the situation, as Quinn carelessly tosses the hoodie back over the log. Santana rolls herself on top of Quinn, pinning her flat against the ground before leaning down to reunite their lips.

Quinn slightly squirms, maybe even struggles, beneath her for a moment and Santana immediately pulls back, concerned.

"What is it?" she asks softly.

Quinn shakes her head, feeling a little bit silly, really, a blush creeping up across her cheeks. "The ground's wet," she explains bashfully.

Santana just smirks and wiggles her eyebrows. "And so am I," she lets out playfully.

Quinn laughs, her eyes wide in disbelief. "You're _disgusting_."

"I'm honest," Santana shrugs, her grin not dropping. She runs a soft hand over Quinn's cheek, feeling a flutter as she looks deep into hazel eyes. "And _you're_ beautiful."

Quinn blushes heavily, her face awash in red as she turns her head to the side in absolute embarrassment.

Santana's brow furrows and she stills her hand. She drops slightly onto her side, leaning her weight onto her elbow, now half-hovering over the girl beneath her. "Why do you always do that?" she asks softly, curiously, her fingers brushing absently through blonde hair.

Quinn's eyes are still elsewhere, but she does respond. "What?"

Santana brushes a few loose strands behind Quinn's ear before letting her fingertips trace along the girl's face. "Whenever I say you're pretty, or beautiful―because you _are_―you get nervous... flustered, even. I mean, it's totally adorable, don't get me wrong, but you must already know that you're a fucking ten."

If it's even possible, Quinn blushes further at the words.

"Quinn," Santana compels softly, and at the sound of her whole name, so rare from Santana's lips, Quinn's eyes finally meet Santana's own. Santana brushes her hand across Quinn's cheek, and Quinn's hand rises to rest atop it, pulling it to place a kiss on the palm.

"That's not my real name, you know."

Santana's brow furrows. "Ok... so what's your real name, then?"

Quinn takes to playing with Santana's hand between her own, tracing veins and lines, brushing her fingers along the longer ones in her grasp, as she releases a small sigh. "Lucy."

"_Lucy_," Santana mouths, though she doesn't say it aloud.

Quinn sighs heavier this time, closing her eyes, stilling her hands and dropping them to clasp on her stomach. "Lucy lived in Belleville. Lucy was a loner who had no friends. Lucy was fat and ugly and had a hideous nose. Lucy hated herself," she tails off, her voice incredibly soft.

Santana just nods to herself, slightly confused, as she takes in the new influx of information.

"_Quinn_," she presses on, her voice nearly breaking, and there's almost a hint of resentment in the name. "Quinn lives in Lima. Quinn is pretty, and popular, and has cheerleading, and goes to McKinley..." she trails off before she hesitates, her eyes sliding back open and training on the brown eyes just above her. "Quinn likes Santana."

Santana smiles softly. "And Santana likes Quinn."

"Yeah?" Quinn voices softly, seemingly searching for verification, and Santana just nods.

"Yeah. In fact, I _love_ Quinn," she admits, a soothing tone to her voice, as she lets her hand brush through long blonde hair. "And I love Lucy."

Once the words are out, their eyes meet for a brief moment before they both laugh, Santana's head dropping onto Quinn's shoulder in embarrassment. Quinn just raises her hands to run them through Santana's hair before gently lifting her head.

"Hey," she says softly, compelling Santana to look at her again. It works.

Their eyes meet with a subtle intensity, and Santana's heart flutters again. "You are a fucking beautiful person, Lucy-Quinn," she smiles, causing the girl beneath her to chuckle again, her nose wrinkling adorably, and Santana can't help but steal another kiss. When she pulls back, she makes sure that Quinn's eyes are still focused on hers. "You're beautiful, Quinn, and that's not just because of your nose, or your body, or anything like that." Santana runs her hand through blonde hair again. "You make me laugh―like, genuinely _laugh_―and not a lot of people can do that. You're smart, you're sweet as fucking apple pie, and―" she hesitates, swallowing thickly. "You're kind of perfect."

Quinn's eyes are wide in amazement and Santana's half sure the girl's poised to cry again, but instead she pulls Santana in and kisses her deeply. Santana returns the embrace, the enthusiasm, and they fall into the feel of one another. They kiss like their lives depended on it, like it's the only thing in the world that matters, and, well, at least to Santana, it kind of _is_.

They only break apart when oxygen becomes an issue, and when Quinn speaks, her voice is gruff, uneven.

"I think I might, maybe, love you, too," she breathes out against Santana's lips, and Santana's eyes immediately snap open, honing in on Quinn's with uncharacteristic vulnerability.

"Yeah?"

Quinn nods, and Santana's heart skips a beat.

"Yeah," she breathes out softly in return, brushing her nose against Santana's, her eyes soft but confident.

Santana smiles incredibly wide. "I missed you," she blurts out, and her voice nearly breaks at the weight of the emotion behind her words. "I honestly fucking did."

Quinn chuckles softly, pulling her down into a tight hug. "I missed you, too," she whispers, her voice soft and laced with regret. "Do you know how hard it was staying away from you?"

Santana shakes her head slightly as she pulls away, giving Quinn a deep kiss before pulling back, looking down at her adoringly. "You're like my horcrux," she lets out softly, and Quinn barely bites back a laugh, because, well, hello _random_.

She arches an amused eyebrow. "Ok, I'm about ninety percent sure that reference is wrong unless you're planning to go all evil-immortal on me."

Santana just shakes her head again, her smile not faltering. "But it kinda works, too."

Now Quinn's confused, and Santana chuckles softly, leaning in to kiss her once more before settling back with a smile. She brushes her hand through Quinn's hair before reaching back to take a pale hand into her own, brushing her lips gently across it before holding it against her pounding chest.

"You're a piece of me. I feel like less of a person when you're not around, like a part of my soul is missing... but when you're here, I'm... I'm whole again."

Now Quinn _is_ crying, and Santana almost feels bad about it, but then Quinn is on top of her and kissing away any thoughts she may have had. It's mere moments before Quinn's sweater is disposed of and hands start to roam freely as the pair simply fall into one another. Their kisses grow hungrier as more clothing is shed, and they're nearly down to their underwear when Santana takes control, topping Quinn with a smirk before kissing her again.

They don't have sex. Truthfully, neither of them are ready to take that step; neither of them are prepared to deal with the emotional consequences of doing it, let alone trying to figure out the actual mechanics involved. Instead, when spent, they cuddle―tangled in each other's bodies, hands brushing through hair, along cool skin, soft kisses peppered in between long, drawn out sessions of making out.

As they relearn each other, Santana's not sure she's ever felt so happy, that she's ever felt so _at home_ despite the fact that they're in the middle of the forest in a town that she couldn't point out on a map if you asked her to. None of it matters. All that matters is that she's found Quinn, and that she's finally fucking found home.

It feels too soon when the warning bell rings, echoing through the forest and reverberating across the calm surface of the lake. Quinn pulls her lips slightly back, though her body stays put, with a disappointed groan.

"Can we just sleep out here?"

Santana breathes out a long sigh, mostly in contentment, a large part of her wanting to _never_ move from this spot, from Quinn's arms. "It's wet."

Quinn grins and raises an eyebrow. "So am I."

Santana's eyes slide open and she laughs, looking at the girl in front of her―the girl she's pretty well convinced she wants to spend forever with―her eyes wide in shock. "Who's disgusting now, huh?"

Quinn just smiles before leaning in to kiss Santana again, and, in this moment, all she can feel, all she_ knows_, is soft, strawberry lips, a warm tongue brushing against her own, gentle fingertips playing along her hipbone, tangling in her hair. And with the way their legs are tangled together, the way their arms are wrapped around one another, and, above all else, the way they just seem to _fit_, Santana starts to think that, yeah, maybe Quinn is right.

Maybe this _is_ Heaven.

* * *

><p><strong>[The song Santana sings is 'Make You Feel My Love', originally by Bob Dylan but nicely covered by Adele, c. 2008.]<strong>


	16. Epilogue

Santana and Quinn stand a foot apart, just watching as the counsellors load bags into the backs of the school buses, and it finally starts to sink in―the realization that the summer's really over. From this point on, everything that's happened over the past two months is just going to be a piece of nostalgia, boxed and shelved somewhere within a lifetime of memories. It's a strange feeling, knowing that it's all over, and Santana can feel it as a dull burn at the bottom of her stomach.

Fact is, she's gonna miss Sam. Fuck, the boy's become like a surrogate brother to her and she can hardly imagine the idea of being so close to another guy without any awkward sexual tension. And, of course, then there's _Quinn_. She smiles as she looks over at the girl at her left―the girl who maybe isn't quite her 'girlfriend' or whatever yet, but is certainly the most important thing to her right now; the girl who she probably shouldn't have feelings for but most definitely does; and, the girl who probably shouldn't love her, but absolutely does.

And that fact makes Santana's heart flutter more than anything else.

It's a few long, thoughtful moments before Sam walks up behind them, wedging himself between the pair as he slings an arm over either of their shoulders, effectively pulling Santana from her thoughts.

"I missed this," he smiles, looking pointedly at each girl in turn and squeezing their shoulders. "We're like the Three Amigos. We just shouldn't be apart."

"Three _Musketeers_," Santana corrects automatically.

A slight smirk pulls at Quinn's lips. "More like the Powerpuff Girls."

Santana can't quite suppress a laugh, though she does clamp a hand over her mouth, and Sam just raises an unimpressed eyebrow.

"Yeah, right. Who would I even be?"

"Bubbles," the girls answer flatly in unison, and they link hands as they both fall into a fit of laughter.

Sam rolls his eyes heavily, sighing in mock-annoyance. "Well, I'm glad you two are getting along again... _and_ that you're just as ridiculous as ever."

Santana raises a hand to wipe a tear from her eye as she looks up at the boy. "But you still love us," she says matter-of-factly.

Sam tightens his arms around both of their shoulders, a bit of a sad smile playing across his ridiculously large lips as he nods. "Yeah. I kinda do."

Both girls shoot him a smile in return before Quinn slightly clears her throat, looking over at Santana.

"So, Buttercup―"

Santana's brow furrows and she raises a finger. "Wait a minute, why the fuck am _I_ Buttercup?" she questions indignantly. "Just because I'm not all _Children of the Corn_―fair-haired and pale as fuck―like the two of you?"

Quinn just stares at her, unimpressed, and Santana grins as she slightly shakes her head.

"Racist."

Both Quinn and Sam laugh before Quinn looks over at her with an adoring smile, and Santana feels that flutter that she missed so much; that flutter she thought she would never feel again.

"Might have something to do with the fact you're a bit of a badass, too," Quinn footnotes, her smile only dropping as Santana's spreads. She scoffs. "Oh, don't let it go to your enormous head. We wouldn't want you to float off into the clouds."

Santana just shrugs. "Well, I think as a Powerpuff Girl it's pretty well established that I can fly, so..."

Quinn rolls her eyes, and Santana smiles.

"Besides, you just wanna be Blossom so _you_ can be top dog."

Quinn nods firmly, "That's right."

Sam just watches as the pair interact, smiling and shaking his head at the ridiculousness of it all, and Quinn grins.

"Just wait until we're Cheerios... you'll see just how fast I'm on top."

Santana purses her lips and arches an eyebrow. "Oh, I'm pretty sure I already proved last night who's _on top_," she winks, a terribly smug smile pulling at her lips.

Quinn's cheeks instantly redden, though a look of lust flashes across her eyes at the memory, and Sam lifts his hands from the girls' shoulders and claps them over his ears.

"Ok, you two are going to have to learn what's appropriate to talk about in public and what isn't, because my ears were _not_ ready for that."

Both girls laugh and Sam just shakes his head as he drops his hands back down to shove the girls' shoulders playfully. He breathes out a sigh as he turns his gaze forward, though.

"Looks like this is it," he says with a slight tip of his chin.

The girls follow Sam's stare to see the counsellors sealing the back door of their bus. Lines of campers are starting to form at the fronts of the buses, some of them hugging, some crying, as they say their final goodbyes. Santana considers it a stroke of luck that the three of them are all getting dropped off at the church rather than downtown so that at least they're on the same bus; so that at least they don't have to say their goodbyes _quite_ yet.

Santana sighs as well. "Yeah, sure does."

The three share sad eye contact, and Quinn sniffs hard, looking once again like she's going to cry. Santana steps forward and takes small, pale hands into her own, squeezing them reassuringly, and Quinn shoots her a soft, thankful smile. Santana pulls her in for a hug, wrapping her arms protectively around slight shoulders as Quinn's head settles onto hers and pale arms wrap tightly around her torso.

"Aww," Sam lets out sweetly, and it's not long before his arms are wrapped around both girls, squeezing tightly.

Sam's hold lingers a little too long for Santana's taste, though, and she arches an eyebrow.

"Don't get _too_ excited, Aquaman. A threesome's not in the cards."

Sam pulls away with a roll of his eyes, and Quinn slaps Santana's side, though she also chuckles and places a sly kiss on her neck before she pulls away. Santana just smiles.

It's not much longer before they board their bus. Santana slides into a window seat near the back with Quinn following after her and Sam takes the seat in front of them, stretching his legs out across it to keep it to himself. They spend the first hour of the trip just chatting about random things, an alarming sense of normalcy to their interaction in spite of the knowledge that it's one of their last.

By the time they start to enter civilization, though, Sam has passed out with his head leaned back against the window, his giant, fishy lips hanging open as a soft snore intermittently slips out. The girls laugh lightly and Quinn settles against Santana's shoulder, releasing a bit of a yawn herself. Santana reaches down and takes one of Quinn's hands into her own, placing a soft kiss on it before settling it onto her lap.

It's not much longer before Santana hears the soft, characteristic murmur she's grown to love come from the girl on her shoulder, and it makes her smile. She releases Quinn's hand and rather throws her arm around the blonde's shoulders, wrapping her up tight. She places a soft kiss on Quinn's head, earning another murmur that makes her heart flutter.

When she lifts her head again, she can see one of the Lima Middle girls shooting a particularly discriminating glance in her direction. Santana just smiles and nods smugly as she flips her the bird.

"_Santana_!" Colleen chides from a few seats ahead, causing her to raise her hand slightly in not-so-genuine apology, though she reflexively rolls her eyes when Colleen turns away.

At the commotion, Quinn shifts, wrapping her arms around Santana's torso and leaning further against her. Santana looks down and, yeah, though this is nothing near anything she expected coming into this, she's pretty sure this is where she always wants to be. She tightens her grip around Quinn as she leans her head against the window, looking out at the city as they start to pass through it and letting her mind drift.

If she had to look back on it all, she'd probably say that it started with a stolen cigarette and ended with questioning one's faith, but―with the comfortable weight of Quinn's body settled against hers, the feel of blonde hair tickling against her collarbone, the way her senses are clouded by the faintly sweet smell that never fails to fire her heart, the painfully wide smile she seems to be unable to fight whenever Quinn's near―she can hardly imagine where it'll lead.

**-FIN-**

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><p><strong>Endnote: In before I'm asked, <em>yes<em>. I am considering a sequel to follow the girls through freshman year and right up through canon Glee. However, I've had very little time to devote to writing lately, so it's hard to say at the moment whether I'll actually be able to follow through. :(**

**In any case, I hope you enjoyed my little story and thank you for reading :)**


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